East Runton Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s have a look at what’s heading our way for East Runton.

Straight up, this is a tough one. The whole 16-day window is looking bleak for a proper surf. There’s a long stretch of nothing worthwhile right from the start, and it’s not until the second week that we even see a glimmer of something rideable. The first real sniff of a wave that’s worth paddling out for doesn’t show up until the morning of Tuesday, the 11th of August.

The water’s warm, mind you. At 66°F, it’s running much warmer than normal for this time of year, so you won’t need a thick wetsuit, but that’s about the only silver lining for a while.

Monday morning, 27th of July kicks things off with a poor 3ft swell from the NNW, but a stiff 16 mph WNW cross-breeze is chopping it all up. Not worth getting wet. This same story of small, weak, and messy surf continues day after day. The wind is almost always on it, and the swell energy is pitiful, mostly in the teens and twenties. There’s a moment on Thursday afternoon, 30th of July where the wind goes glassy, but the swell is a tiny 1.0ft, so it’s nothing but a bump. You’d be bobbing around on a lake.

Then we hit a gap. From the end of July right through the first week of August, it’s all tiny, weak, and onshore. The swell picks up a little around Sunday, 2nd of August, with a 3ft swell from the ENE, but the wind is still cross-onshore and choppy. The energy is still weak at 56. This pattern of small, wind-affected surf drags on. The wind actually gets stronger, with a fresh breeze from the East on the 4th and 5th, making things lumpy and unappealing. The swell gets a bit bigger on Thursday afternoon, 6th of August, hitting 5ft from the East with a moderate energy of 118, but it’s coming with a fresh cross-onshore wind and rain. That’s a messy, grovelly day at best.

The Standout (and only real hope):

The only time this forecast gets interesting is on Tuesday morning, 11th of August. We’ve got a 4ft swell rolling in from the NNW, with a period of 9 seconds, and the combined energy is a solid 406. That’s a proper pulse of energy. The wind is light, just 6 mph from the NNE and onshore, but it’s light enough that it’ll be workable. It won’t be perfect, but it’s the only day in the whole 16 days where the ocean has enough grunt to push a rideable wave. It’s a Monday morning, so crowds might be a problem, but with this kind of drought, there will be a few others out. Keep your expectations in check, but this is the day to check.

For the rest, it’s a long, flat wait. The setup is so poor for so long that it’s honestly more interesting for the kite surfers if the wind picks up, because there’s hardly any wave to push a surfboard.

Rusty.

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