Praia de Palmas Surf Stats

This picture shows the variation of swells directed at Praia de Palmas through an average October. It is based on 2976 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Praia de Palmas, and at Praia de Palmas the best grid node is 57 km away (35 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 22% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was E, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ENE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Praia de Palmas and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Praia de Palmas, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Praia de Palmas run for about 78% of the time.

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