Ile d'Oleron - Les Huttes Surf Stats

This image illustrates the variation of swells directed at Ile d'Oleron - Les Huttes through a typical October. It is based on 3471 NWW3 model predictions since 2006 (values every 3 hours). The wave model does not forecast surf and wind right at the coastline so we have chosen the best grid node based on what we know about Ile d'Oleron - Les Huttes. In this particular case the best grid node is 8 km away (5 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 13% of the time. Green and yellow illustrate increasing swell sizes and red represents the largest swells, greater than >3m (>10ft). In each graph, the area of any colour is proportional to how often that size swell occurs. The diagram indicates that the dominant swell direction, shown by the largest spokes, was W, whereas the the most common wind blows from the E. Because the wave model grid is offshore, sometimes a strong offshore wind blows largest waves away from Ile d'Oleron - Les Huttes and away from the coast. We combine these with the no surf category of the bar chart. To avoid confusion we don't show these in the rose graph. Because wind determines whether or not waves are clean enough to surf at Ile d'Oleron - Les Huttes, you can select a similar diagram that shows only the swells that were forecast to coincide with glassy or offshore wind conditions. Over an average October, swells large enough to cause surfable waves at Ile d'Oleron - Les Huttes run for about 87% of the time.

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