La Cote Sauvage Surf Stats

The graph describes the combination of swells directed at La Cote Sauvage through an average September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about La Cote Sauvage. In the case of La Cote Sauvage, the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These happened only 12% 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 happens. The diagram implies that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest 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 La Cote Sauvage and offshore. We lump these in with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at La Cote Sauvage, 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 September, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at La Cote Sauvage run for about 88% of the time.

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