Saquarema (Itaúna) Alert Guide
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil · part of the Saquarema (Itaúna) spot guide
Saquarema is forecast-only — the nearest NOAA station is a meteorological mooring nearly a thousand kilometres away in the tropical Atlantic — so the alert runs on the GFS-Wave model and the height below is an open-ocean reading. The Brazilian Navy’s PNBOIA buoy off Cabo Frio, when it is on station, is the regional in-situ cross-check.
The forecaster's checklist
- 1.Watch for cyclogenesis off Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul; a low tracking east with fetch around 35–45°S is two to three days from Saquarema.
- 2.Want swell from the south-east to south-south-west, 135–215° best, with 100–240° reaching the beach — south-east for the Point left, south-west for the Barrinha right.
- 3.Look for 11 seconds and up; 13–15 seconds is the groundswell that wedges the bank.
- 4.Score the north-west pre-frontal offshore — any wind from the north-west through north-east works — before the post-frontal south-west arrives; summer afternoons turn south-east onshore.
- 5.Surf the low-to-mid tide on the push; high tide throws backwash across the beach. Read the model swell as open-ocean: 3 to 6 feet is fun-to-firing, 8 feet and up is the Point at full stretch.
Local winds & tide
Best wind: NW–NE offshore — from 300° to 60° (WNW–ENE).
Microtidal semidiurnal, about 1.3 m at most. Works all tides; best on a low-to-mid tide rising, with strong backwash on the high.
Dial it in
The dial-up: alert settings that catch it
When ALL of these line up in the 5-day forecast window, this spot is turning on.
- Open-ocean swell height
- ≥ 3 ft
- Swell period
- ≥ 11 s
- Swell direction (from)
- 100°–240° (E–WSW)
- Wind direction (from)
- 300°–60° (WNW–ENE)
No representative buoy on this coast — read these numbers against the 16-day spot forecast instead.