Baie des Carpes Surf Stats

This picture describes the combination of swells directed at Baie des Carpes through a typical June, based on 3506 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Baie des Carpes, and at Baie des Carpes the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These happened only 35% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red shows highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was NW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the WNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Baie des Carpes and offshore. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Baie des Carpes, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Baie des Carpes run for about 65% of the time.

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