South America

Wind, swell & tides for South America

The Pacific Ocean

Following the trend set by the rest of the Americas, South America is also a clear case of split personality in terms of swell exposure. The Pacific coast from Ecuador to Peru and on to Chile is perfectly poised to soak up the best of the SW swells from the South Pacific surf factory. Low pressures trundle along a path from New Zealand to Cape Horn nearly all-year-round, marching swell out of the southwest onto the rocky shoreline of Pacific South America. These swells are helpfully guided by the Humboldt (or Peru) Current, which tends to drag more SW swells up the coast of Chile and into Peru. Some spots in Chile and Peru can be ridden every day, which is a rare privilege on Planet Surf’s inconsistent shorelines.

While Chile and most of Peru rely on generous SW swells, Northern Peru and Ecuador protrude enough to pick up the end of the wave train from the North Pacific Aleutian lows. These long-distance, long period, winter NW swells have to march for up to 10 days from their point of origin and consequently lose much in the way of height and lulls between sets are long. Waves are seasonally erratic and water temps are balmy unless surfing the Galapagos Islands, where the end of the Humboldt Current deposits the coldest water found at equatorial latitudes.

Thousands of kilometres of desert fringe the coast where the constant SE to SW winds blow, bringing tailor-made offshores to the seemingly endless array of lefthand pointbreaks that nestle inside the protection of southern headlands. Winds veer more westerly in Chile, while in Northern Peru and Ecuador, the S wind is lighter and mornings can be windless glass.

The extensive Atacama Desert (the driest on earth) is sandwiched between the lofty peaks of the Andes to the east and the predictable massive upwelling that occurs off Southern Peru and Northern Chile. Compounded by the Humboldt Current, chilly year-round water temps bring thick fog, yet a complete absence of rain in places. When the El Niño current crosses the Pacific, a warm layer of water can disturb the balance, causing chaos via heavy rain and mudslides in areas that usually receive no rain at all. Semi-diurnal tidal ranges are 1-2m for most of the Pacific coast, although Colombia can hit 5m in the north.

The Atlantic Ocean

Like most east-facing coasts, South America suffers from a lack of decent groundswells. South Atlantic lows quickly travel eastward to Africa, putting too much W in the swell, leaving the bulk of the coast reliant on SE-S pulses, coming off the back of the clockwise spinning pressure systems. This is compounded by the fact that the South Atlantic is the only ocean within tropical latitudes that virtually never receives any tropical storm action (only one recorded storm, Catarina in 2004). The third detracting factor is the extensive continental shelf that robs the waves of height and power. South America's east coast rarely gets epic big swells, but its saving grace is the consistent and favourable NE, E and SE windswell that hits year-round.

Most of the surf in Argentina and Uruguay relies on these windswells outside of winter when wave heights can really suffer. Brazil accounts for the bulk of the eastern seaboard and not surprisingly gets the lion's share of consistently small onshore surf conditions. The southern surf regions provide the best chance of size from the southern hemisphere winter lows, which will send in SE swells and occasionally SW swells from cold fronts, or make do with the windswell whipped up by the constant E sea breezes.

Further north, the tropical region of Brazil gets SE trades in winter, producing windswell mush, but very little to surf in summer. Atlantic South America is almost devoid of islands, but winter North Atlantic swells have Fernando do Noronha in their sights and can also reach NE-facing states of Brazil like Ceara, but wave heights will be austere.

Currents are courtesy of the large gyre that feeds cooler water from the Benguela Current off Africa into the warmer Brazilian Current before sinking south to complete the circuit. The North Brazilian Current offshoot warms the waters of the NE before merging with the Caribbean Current. The cold Malvinas Current chills the coastal waters of Patagonia where one of the few areas of coastal upwelling on an east-facing coast lowers the water temperature even further. This southern area also experiences some diurnal tides and a massive tidal range up to 9.5m, as does the NE equatorial coast of Brazil, especially around the mouth of the Amazon where it hits 4m+. The rest of the east coast is mainly micro-tidal and either semi-diurnal odd or even.