Baie des Carpes Surf Stats

This picture illustrates the combination of swells directed at Baie des Carpes over a normal October. It is based on 3471 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 optimum grid node based on what we know about Baie des Carpes. In this particular case the best grid node is 28 km away (17 miles). The rose diagram illustrates the distribution of swell sizes and swell direction, while the graph at the bottom shows the same thing but without direction information. Five colours show increasing wave sizes. The smallest swells, less than 0.5m (1.5 feet), high are coloured blue. These were forecast only 14% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). 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 biggest spokes, was NW, whereas the the most common wind blows from the NNW. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Baie des Carpes and away from the coast. We group these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To keep it simple we don't show these in the rose diagram. Because wind determines whether or not waves are surfable at Baie des Carpes, 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 October, swells large enough to cause good for surfing waves at Baie des Carpes run for about 86% of the time.

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