El Cardon Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here. Let’s take a good hard look at what’s on the table for the next couple of weeks.

Right off the bat, I gotta be straight with you – this is a tough stretch. The water is sitting at 77°F at El Cardon, which is a solid 7°F warmer than usual for this time of year. That’s well above normal, so you’ll be surfing in some pretty toasty conditions, but unfortunately, the waves just aren’t cooperating.

The first real surf we see is a faint pulse on Wednesday the 26th of August, but it’s basically a washout. The swell is a weak 2ft from the SW with a long period of 15 seconds, but the combined energy is only 215 – that’s weak. And the wind is a cross-onshore from the WNW, leaving it choppy and messy. The forecast calls it poor, and I’m not gonna argue with that.

The pattern holds through the end of August and into the start of September. Nearly every morning and afternoon session is plagued by cross-onshore winds, and the swell stays small, rarely cracking 3ft. The periods are all over the place, from 10 to 17 seconds, but the energy numbers are mostly in the low to mid 200s and 300s – weak to moderate at best. The comment on the wave conditions is always poor or marginal. There’s a hint of something on the morning of Saturday the 29th of August, with a little 3ft SW swell and offshore wind from the WSW, but the energy is still just 475 (moderate), and it’s marked as marginal. It’s not worth paddling out for.

We go through a long gap with no real standout surf. The whole first week of September is a slog. The 3rd of September has a touch more energy, hitting 700 on the Thursday afternoon, but the swell is only 3ft and the wind is cross-onshore again. Not good.

The only glimmer of hope comes late in the window. Around the 9th of September, Wednesday morning, we see a 3ft SW swell with a period of 10 seconds, light cross-onshore wind, and the energy number climbs to 504 (moderate). The forecast calls it marginal, but it’s the best we’ve seen in a while. The Thursday morning of the 10th of September has a 3ft SW swell with a 17-second period, and the energy is 624 (moderate), but again, the wind is cross-onshore. It’s still not clean.

Honestly, there’s nothing here that I’d get excited about. The swell is too small, the wind is too often onshore or cross-onshore, and the surf quality is consistently poor. Even the longer-period swells, which usually carry more punch, aren’t breaking well here. This is a point break, so it’s not ideal for those long-period groundswells anyway – they tend to run too straight.

If you’re desperate, the morning of the 9th of September is the closest thing to a session, but I wouldn’t plan a trip around it. Keep an eye on the charts, but for now, I’d say give it a miss.

Rusty.

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