Capbreton - La Pointe Surf Stats

The graph illustrates the variation of swells directed at Capbreton - La Pointe through an average July and is based upon 3720 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Capbreton - La Pointe. In this particular case the best grid node is 42 km away (26 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, 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 happened only 3% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell was forecast. The diagram indicates that the prevailing swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Capbreton - La Pointe and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Capbreton - La Pointe, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Capbreton - La Pointe run for about 97% of the time.

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