Plage du Loch Surf Stats

The rose diagram shows the combination of swells directed at Plage du Loch over a normal April. It is based on 3120 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Plage du Loch, and at Plage du Loch the best grid node is 27 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 22% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Plage du Loch and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Plage du Loch, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Plage du Loch run for about 78% of the time.

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