Sion sur l'Ocean Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Sion sur l'Ocean over a normal April. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2007 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coast so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Sion sur l'Ocean, and at Sion sur l'Ocean the best grid node is 23 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram shows the distribution of swell directions and swell sizes, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These happened only 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red shows largest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how frequently that size swell occurs. The diagram suggests that the most common swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the N. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Sion sur l'Ocean and offshore. We group these 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 clean enough to surf at Sion sur l'Ocean, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical April, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Sion sur l'Ocean run for about 87% of the time.

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