Le Triangle Surf Stats

The rose diagram describes the combination of swells directed at Le Triangle through an average April and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Le Triangle, and at Le Triangle the best grid node is 19 km away (12 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 39% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Le Triangle and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Le Triangle, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical April, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Le Triangle run for about 61% of the time.

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