Statistiques de Surf de Saint-Marie

The figure describes the range of swells directed at Saint-Marie over a normal September. It is based on 3360 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind or surf right at the shore so we have chosen the most applicable grid node based on what we know about Saint-Marie. In this particular case the best grid node is 43 km away (27 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 represent increasing wave sizes. Very small swells of less than 0.5m (1.5 feet) high are shown in blue. These were forecast only 46% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the highest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell happens. The diagram indicates that the most common swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was SSW, whereas the the dominant wind blows from the ESE. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Saint-Marie and offshore. We lump these in 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 clean enough to surf at Saint-Marie, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were predicted to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. During a typical September, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Saint-Marie run for about 1.0% of the time.

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