Pont Blondin Surf Stats

The figure describes the combination of swells directed at Pont Blondin through an average May and is based upon 3440 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Pont Blondin, and at Pont Blondin the best grid node is 33 km away (21 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 show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These occurred only 1.3% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In both graphs, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell was forecast. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Pont Blondin and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose plot. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Pont Blondin, 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 May, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Pont Blondin run for about 99% of the time.

read more