Live wave height, wind and water temp — plus an 8-day forecast scored 0–100 for every sport.
Photo: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Today at Praia Formosa: Epic! for wing foiling — 97/100 for expert level. Wind 16 kn E · Waves 0.8 m, 11 s · Tide -0.8 to 0.4 m. Best window around 15:00 UTC. Today's conditions at Praia Formosa: 0.8m waves with strong offshore wind. Wing Foiling looks Epic! in the midday, with Kite Foiling also worth considering. Water temperature is 23°C / 74°F.
Forecast updated · ShorSense™
Today plus the next two days are free for everyone — scored in 3-hour windows, just like the app. The full 8-day forecast lives in the 4Shor app.
Praia Formosa faces SW, open to the prevailing westerlies, so the wind arrives off the water rather than filtered through the land — the clean, steady flow wing foiling wants, and the reason gusts here are sea breezes rather than land turbulence.
Today's wind is cross-offshore at 16 kn. Leaning offshore, so a failure drifts you away from the beach rather than back to it — rideable for wing foiling, but not the direction to push your luck in.
Over the published window Praia Formosa clears 60/100 for wing foiling at Intermediate, Advanced, Expert levels — that is who this spot is for on this sport. Today, 10 of 11 daylight hours clear that line at Intermediate.
Among the 22 scored spots within reach today, Praia Formosa ranks 10th for wing foiling. The order changes by discipline: the same conditions that put a spot top for one sport can drop it down the list for another.
Satellite-derived bathymetry with 10 m pixels and 10 cm vertical resolution out to ~40 m depth. The shape of the seabed is what determines where and how waves break.
Most apps run a single global model at 9–25 km. We blend regional NWP from national meteorological offices at 1.3–2 km — UK Met Office UKV, Météo-France AROME HD, ItaliaMeteo ICON-2I — with ECMWF IFS for the 8-day horizon. Finer resolution means the sea breeze, cliff funnelling and bay shadowing that changes everything for a session.
A nearshore wave model propagates the spectrum across the bathymetric mesh — modelling refraction, shoaling, dissipation, focusing and breaking as it goes. Most apps stop at swell + wind. We go further.
10 sport models × 4 ability levels weight wave height, period, wind, tide and breaking conditions differently — calibrated against ridden sessions so the scores mean what they say.
A roughly 2 km, SW-facing beach of dark volcanic pebble and coarse sand linking Funchal to Camara de Lobos via a coastal promenade - Madeira's largest beach complex and one of its few kiteable spots. An exposed rocky point break produces left and right waves, best on SW swell with offshore NE wind; rocks are the main hazard and kiting here is advanced-only. Blue Flag status; lifeguards cover two posts through the bathing season.
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Wind at Praia Formosa today: 16 kn E (gusting 28 kn). Wind direction relative to the shore affects wing foiling conditions significantly — offshore winds produce cleaner, glassier surfaces while onshore winds add chop. These are daily averages; the 4Shor app shows hourly detail.
Waves at Praia Formosa today: 0.8 m, 11 s period from NW, peeling character. 4Shor derives nearshore wave conditions from ECMWF IFS 9-km atmospheric data and the IBI regional ocean model, updated hourly.
The best window for wing foiling at Praia Formosa today is around 00:00 UTC, when conditions score 77/100 for intermediate level. Conditions can shift by the hour — the 4Shor app shows the full 24-hour score chart.
For beginners, Praia Formosa scores 79/100 today for surfing — Good. A score of 65–79 is Good for a beginner; 80+ is Excellent (90+ is Epic!); below 45 the session is usually not worth it. 4Shor scores every location across Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert levels.
Praia Formosa is scored for Surfing, Windsurfing, Kite Surfing, Kite Foiling, Wing Foiling, E-Foiling, Paddleboarding, Swimming, Kayaking, Canoeing in the 4Shor forecast system. Conditions are rated Beginner through Expert for each sport, updated every hour, so you always know whether the session is worth the drive.
Praia Formosa is a coastal location near Câmara de Lobos in Portugal. It is one of more than 2,500 European water-sport locations scored daily by 4Shor.
4Shor's ShorSense™ system combines satellite-derived seafloor mapping, nearshore wave models, wind and tide data to generate a hyper-local forecast. At Praia Formosa, conditions are scored hourly on a 0–100 scale for each sport and ability level. A score of 80+ means Excellent (90+ Epic!); 65–79 is Good; below 45 the session is usually not worth the drive.
Questions about 4Shor itself — accuracy, pricing, the free trial — are answered on the FAQ page.
