El Camotal Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here. Let's break it down for El Camotal, in the old-school numbers.

Right off the bat, the first few days are a bust. Tuesday the 25th and Wednesday the 26th are flat and ugly with cross-onshore wind. You're looking at maybe 2 ft to 2 ft of weak, short-period junk with no power. Not worth getting wet for. It's gonna feel like a long wait.

Come Thursday the 27th, there's a flicker. The morning shows a jump to a 20-second period – that's real groundswell – and the energy is up. But the swell height is still a tiny 2 ft, and that cross-onshore wind is still blowing. It’s marginal at best. Friday the 28th gets interesting for size. The swell builds to 6 ft in the morning and 7 ft in the afternoon, from the SW with a 16-17 second period. The energy readings are in the strong range. But the catch is that cross-onshore wind again. That 7 ft swell is getting into the "experts only" zone, but the wave quality is going to be chopped and bumpy. Not the good kind of big.

Through the end of August and into the first week of September, it’s a frustrating pattern. We get pulses of SW swell around the 5 ft mark, but winds of 15-20 km/h keep it choppy and messy. The week is mostly 3 ft to 4 ft SW swell with that same cross-onshore wind. Nothing cleans up.

If you’re looking for the one and only bright spot, pencil in the morning of Friday the 4th of September. For the first time in the whole forecast, the wind goes onshore from the WSW at just 10 km/h. This is as close to glassy as we're gonna get. The swell is a solid 5 ft from the SW with a 16-second period, and the energy is strong at 1248. It's still a bit much for the beginners, but for anyone with some skill, that light wind and long-period groundswell could produce the best, most powerful waves of the entire 16 days. It’s the only day I’d circle.

After that, the swell fades fast. By Saturday the 5th, the wind is back up to 20 km/h, and the last week of the forecast is just small, weak, and windy surf in the 3 ft to 4 ft range with no quality.

So, here's the truth: 16 days, and only the morning of Friday the 4th of September has any real promise. The rest is a long stretch of waiting for the wind to cooperate.

Rusty, out.

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