Faro coastal buoy
Portugal
Last wave reading:
Now at the buoy
Significant wave height at the buoy
7.8 ft
2.4 m
- Dominant period
- 11 s
- Direction
- from WSW 250°
This station does not send a swell and wind-wave split, so the numbers are for the whole sea.
Mid-period swell: 7.8 ft at 11 s from the WSW. Holding steady over the last 6 hours.
Significant wave height is the average of the biggest third of waves at the buoy. It is not surf height at a beach.
Trend at the buoy
Height at the buoy
- Total (significant height)
Period
- Dominant period
Hourly means of the buoy's readings. Arrows point the way the waves travel.
Nearby buoys
- Golfo de Cadiz buoy8.9 ft · 13 sLive · 95 km
- Sines coastal buoy13.0 ft · 11 sLive · 145 km
- Tarifa coastal buoy3.2 ft · 9.2 sLive · 229 km
- Algeciras-Pta. Carnero coastal buoy2.4 ft · 10 sLive · 240 km
- Ceuta coastal buoy2.0 ft · 8.2 sLive · 256 km
Other readings
- Water temperature
- 67°F (19.6°C)
Reported Nov 13, 5:26 AM GMT+0.
How to read this buoy
Over the readings shown here, most wave energy reached this buoy from the SW.
Biggest hourly reading in that record: 14.8 ft at 12 s on Nov 12.
- Operator
- Hydrographic Institute
- Program
- Copernicus Marine In Situ
- Position
- 36.905°N, 7.898°W
- Type
- Moored buoy
- Local time zone
- Europe/Lisbon
- Swell split
- No, whole-sea numbers only
Source: E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information; https://doi.org/10.48670/moi-00036. Data from Hydrographic Institute. Licence: Copernicus Marine Service licence. Changes: Quiver converts the units (feet, knots, °F) and shows a subset of the published fields.
Not for navigation. Readings can be late, missing or wrong; check official marine forecasts before going to sea.
Buoy terms
- Significant height
- The average of the biggest third of waves the buoy measured. Sets in the surf zone can be bigger or smaller.
- Dominant period
- Seconds between the waves carrying the most energy. Longer period means more power and more bend around points.
- Swell vs wind waves
- Swell was made by distant wind; wind waves were made nearby. The buoy splits its spectrum at a cutoff period to report each.
- Direction
- Where waves come from, in degrees true. 270° is from the west.
