La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole through a typical November, based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole, and at La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole the best grid node is 38 km away (24 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and directions, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but lacks direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These were forecast only 10% of the time. Green and yellow represent increasing swell sizes and red represents biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole and out to sea. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average November, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at La Cote Sauvage - La Pointe Espagnole run for about 90% of the time.

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