Aytre Lopette Surf Stats

The graph shows the variation of swells directed at Aytre Lopette through a typical August. It is based on 3574 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast wind and surf right at the coast so we have chosen the optimum grid node based on what we know about Aytre Lopette. In the case of Aytre Lopette, the best grid node is 31 km away (19 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 happened only 7% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the biggest 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 dominant swell direction, shown by the biggest spokes, was W, whereas the the prevailing wind blows from the NW. Because the wave model grid is out to sea, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Aytre Lopette and offshore. We combine 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 good for surfing at Aytre Lopette, you can load a different image that shows only the swells that were expected to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average August, swells large enough to cause clean enough to surf waves at Aytre Lopette run for about 93% of the time.

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