Lacanau Ocean Surf Stats

The graph shows the range of swells directed at Lacanau Ocean through an average November. It is based on 3347 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Lacanau Ocean, and at Lacanau Ocean the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing 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 4% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red illustrates biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the WSW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Lacanau Ocean 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 plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at Lacanau Ocean, you can view an alternative image that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical November, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Lacanau Ocean run for about 96% of the time.

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