This image shows only the swells directed at Pointe aux Oies that coincided with light winds or offshore conditions through a typical May. It is based on 1488 predictions, one every 3 hours. The direction of the spokes show where quality surf generating swell comes from. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. Green and yellow illustrate 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 frequently that size swell was forecast.

The diagram suggests that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NW. The chart at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. For example, swells larger than 1.5 feet (0.5m) coincided with good wind conditions 0.2% of the time, equivalent to 0 days. Open sea swells exceeding >3m (>10ft) are unlikely to occur in a normal May. Taking into account the fraction of these swells that coincided with forecast offshore winds we think that that clean surf can be found at Pointe aux Oies about 0.2% of the time and that surf is spoilt by onshore wind 23% of the time. This is means that we expect 7 days with waves in a typical May, of which 0 days should be surfable.

IMPORTANT: Beta version feature! Swell heights are open water values from NWW3. There is no attempt to model near-shore effects. Coastal wave heights will generally be less, especially if the break does not have unobstructed exposure to the open ocean.