Alnes Lighthouse Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, grab your wettie and listen up. It’s Rusty here, and I’ve been staring at the charts for Alnes Lighthouse for the next couple of weeks. Honestly, it’s a bit of a tough stretch ahead for paddle surfing. The long-range outlook is promising in terms of consistency, but the immediate future is a whole lot of wind and chop messing things up.

Here’s the deal. The bulk of this 16-day window is going to be a write-off for clean waves. We’ve got a lot of days where the swell is there, but the wind is mostly cross-shore or cross-on, and often blowing hard. That’s going to leave the place lumpy and messy. There are a few moments of calm, and those are the windows we need to be watching for.

This first week is a real patience test. The energy in the water is weak to moderate, with the combined energy reading around the 150-200 mark. We see swell up to 6ft, but it’s all being blown out. You’ll see poor conditions dominating, day after day. The strongest pulse is around the 20th of August, with combined energy hitting over 400, but the wind is kicking up to 28 mph. That’s not surf, that’s a washing machine. A couple of days later, on the 23rd, a very brief window shows up. The wind drops to nothing for Monday afternoon, giving us glassy conditions and about 3ft of swell. It’s surfable, but it’s very ordinary, nothing to write home about.

Now, for the true standout in this otherwise bleak forecast. Look at Monday, the 17th of August, in the morning. The data shows a brief moment where everything aligns. The wind is from the NNW at 3 mph, which is essentially glassy. That’s a major positive. You’ve got 2ft of swell coming from the north with a 9-second period, which is okay. The energy is still weak (159), but for this break, that’s when the quality is going to be at its peak for the entire forecast. This is the best on offer. Get out early because the afternoon sees the wind swing to the NNE and howl up to 16 mph, wrecking it instantly.

After that, it’s back to the grind. We go through a long stretch of poor conditions right through the 27th. The wind stays up, the swell stays inconsistent, and the energy drops off significantly, sometimes dipping below 100. It's a long, drawn-out period of frustration. The good news is that Alnes Lighthouse is a point break, and it's fairly exposed to the northwest. That means when the wind does finally lighten up, it should handle the swell a bit better than a beach break would. The water temp is about average for this time of year, so no surprises there.

The second week is leaner. The pulse of swell we saw early in the week is gone. We're looking at smaller, weaker swells through the end of August, mostly in the 1ft to 3ft range with the energy truly bottoming out. The wind remains a problem for the most part. There’s one last gasp on the 28th where a longer period swell (11 seconds) shows up, but it’s got a 19 mph cross-shore wind ruining the party. It looks more interesting for the kitesurfers than for us.

So, there you have it. It’s going to be a lot of staring at the ocean, but for the dedicated few, the morning of Monday the 17th is the window. The next week is for waiting and watching the forecasts, because it tends not to stay this poor for long.

Rusty out.

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