Donuts Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here, looking at the surf for Donuts. Gotta be straight with you from the get-go: the charts are looking pretty sad for the next couple of weeks. This is one of those stretches where you might be better off tuning up your board or chasing the wind, because the waves we’re being offered are mostly messy and weak.

The water temp is running a touch warmer than normal for this time of year, sitting at 71°F, so it’s not freezing out there, but that’s about the only silver lining for the first week.

The swell energy is mostly moderate, hovering between 250 and 1550 on the energy scale, so it sounds like there’s something, but the wind is just ruining any chance of it being clean. The direction is also not aligned with what this spot loves, coming from the S and SW instead of a more favorable W.

The first real option we have on the table is for Sunday morning, the 6th. There’s 6ft of SSW groundswell with a 13-second period pushing in. The energy is moderate at 1170. But here’s the rub – the wind is a moderate cross-shore from the NNW, chopping it all up. It’s a marginal call at best, and with the rip and the mess, it’s not going to be a classic. Too big and too ugly for a learner, too messy for a decent surfer.

Then things just fall off a cliff. For the rest of the first week and into the second, we’re stuck with a ton of cross-onshore and cross-shore winds, mostly from the N and NW, messing up the small, short-period swell. The energy drops down into the weak range, sometimes as low as 269 on the 12th and 282 on the 15th. There are a few glassy pockets, but they're just not backed by enough swell.

We do get a few pulses of longer period SW swell, a proper groundswell, in the second week. But those are small, the waves stay around 2ft to 3ft, which is tiny. And with that long period, it might just close out or straighten out at the beach. It's a tease.

The best of a bad bunch actually looks like Saturday the 19th. The outlook shows 5ft of W swell, with a short 8-second period, and the wind is finally forecast to be light onshore from the west. The combined energy is moderate at 637. We won’t see perfection, but that might be the only session all fortnight where you can actually get a few without battling howling cross-offshore winds. It’s still small and short-period, so not for the loggers, but it’s something.

Before that, I’d just say there's nothing worth getting excited about, it's a long dry spell with a few days of nothing at all from the 14th to the 17th. It doesn't tend to stay this poor for long around here, so forecasts will likely change, but right now, keep your expectations in the cellar.

For anyone still wanting to get wet, the winds and the small, messy conditions make this look way more interesting for kitesurfing than for paddle surfing.

Stay patient, Rusty.

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