Seignosse - Les Bourdaines Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the variation of swells directed at Seignosse - Les Bourdaines over a normal July. It is based on 3720 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Seignosse - Les Bourdaines. In this particular case the best grid node is 33 km away (21 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without 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 show increasing swell sizes and red represents largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell was forecast. The diagram suggests that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was WNW, whereas the the most common 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 Seignosse - Les Bourdaines 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 surfable at Seignosse - Les Bourdaines, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical July, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Seignosse - Les Bourdaines run for about 97% of the time.

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