Carcans Plage Surf Stats

The figure shows the variation of swells directed at Carcans Plage through an average June and is based upon 3266 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Carcans Plage. In this particular case the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram describes 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 5% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows the biggest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell happens. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is away from the coast, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Carcans Plage and out to sea. We lump these in 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 surfable at Carcans Plage, 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 June, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Carcans Plage run for about 95% of the time.

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