Baia Formosa 39.5

#4814 of 5756 surf spots in the world · 🇧🇷 Brazil · Rio Grande do Norte · near Nova Cruz

Works almost every day, wind is the enemy here, no off season.

Best time to surf Baia Formosa

The best time to surf Baia Formosa is February, March, June. It rarely works. In February the water sits around 28°C, so pack boardshorts, and the typical wave is 1.1 m. The nearest airport is NAT (58 km) and the nearest town is Nova Cruz (48 km).

What is under Baia Formosa

Eight kilometres out along its swell window the sea floor sits over 29 m. Alongside the bank the survey finds a channel, 40 m against 29 m, deep enough to bend swell onto one peak instead of spreading it along the beach.

Measured, not estimated: NOAA ETOPO 2022 global relief at 15 arc-seconds, about 460 m per cell, sampled along this spot’s own swell window. At that scale the survey sees passes and channels; it cannot see a reef ledge, so nothing here is said about how the wave breaks.

Why 39.5

Seven parts, each normalised 0 to 1 and multiplied by its weight; the sum is scaled so the best spot in the world scores 100. Wave quality and what the spot does on its best days carry more than half of it, which is what separates this from a ranking of where the water is warm.

The detail

Faces 45° with 42% open water around it. Friendly morning wind 34% of days. Mean peak period 7.4 s. Days over 3 m: 0%. On its best tenth of days it reaches 1.4 m, with a peak period of 8 s. Mellow days (0.4 to 1.2 m): 67%. Months that work: 12 of 12. Coordinates -6.367, -35.015 (OpenStreetMap).

What it costs to be here

Estimate: World Bank PPP price level for Brazil (2025, United States = 1.00) applied to a fixed surfer basket, then adjusted for how remote the spot is. Your own number moves with the season and how you live.

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