Use of an environmental proxy to determine turbulence regime surrounding a full-scale tidal turbine deployed within the Fromveur Strait, Brittany, France

•A numerical proxy compares environmental conditions to tidal turbine performance.•Fastest proxy flows are strongly correlated with high flow speed and high TKE.•Extreme loadings increase with high flow and TKE; non-extreme values affected less.•Flood-ebb and spring-neap tides are associated with different sets of observations.•Accelerating-decelerating flows do not show consistently different load influence.