Statistiques de Surf de St Gilles Croix de Vie

The rose diagram describes the variation of swells directed at St Gilles Croix de Vie through an average September and is based upon 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the coastline so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about St Gilles Croix de Vie. In the case of St Gilles Croix de Vie, the best grid node is 22 km away (14 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and directions, 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 16% of the time. Green and yellow show increasing swell sizes and red represents highest swells greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how commonly that size swell occurs. The diagram implies that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from St Gilles Croix de Vie and offshore. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To simplify things we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are good for surfing at St Gilles Croix de Vie, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. In a typical September, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at St Gilles Croix de Vie run for about 84% of the time.

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