Capbreton • Statistics for January

January: The North Atlantic at Full Power

January is the heart of winter and usually Capbreton's most consistent month for properly solid surf. Average swell height sits around 6ft (1.8m), with an average period of 13s-right in the powerful, long-period band that the sandbars love. The swell direction is overwhelmingly from the west-northwest quadrant: WNW and NW combine for roughly 72% of all observations, with a further 3% from W/WSW. That places almost all incoming swell directly in the exposed window of this west-northwest-facing beach. More than a third of the time the wind also comes around to an ideal offshore/easterly direction, with the E and ESE quadrant contributing around 17% of wind observations; E/ESE winds over 30kph are rare, so when these directions do blow they tend to be clean and ridable. The main spoiler is the west and northwest onshore flow: combined W/WNW/NW winds sum to about 20% of the time, often in the 20-40kph range, which can turn even a pumping 6ft swell into a wind-blown mess. Air temperatures average 7°C and water temperature drops to 12.4°C, so you will be wearing full rubber. With 3.4mm of rain per day, expect passing fronts. The good days, however, are worth it: long-period WNW/NW groundswell, offshore wind and winter sandbars conspire to produce some of the heaviest, most powerful waves of the year.