Statistiques de Surf de El Canal

This chart shows the variation of swells directed at El Canal through an average August and is based upon 2976 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 best grid node based on what we know about El Canal, and at El Canal the best grid node is 26 km away (16 miles). The rose diagram describes the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours illustrate increasing wave sizes. Blue shows the smallest swells, less that 0.5m (1.5 feet) high. These occurred only 94% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and biggest swells greater than >3m (>10ft) are shown in red. In either graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the longest spokes, was NE, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from El Canal and away from the coast. We lump these in 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 El Canal, 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 August, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at El Canal run for about 6% of the time.

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