Farol Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Yeah, look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it—this stretch ahead is a bit of a grind for surf. We’ve got a solid 16-day window on the books, but right now there’s nothing that’s gonna have you scrambling for your board. We’re looking at a run of poor surf conditions, and honestly, the first real chance of anything clean doesn’t even pop up until we get into the second week. So, if you’re keen, you might be waiting a while.

Looking at the overall picture for Farol, the energy is there—it’s just messy. We’ve got a persistent cross-onshore breeze out of the east, and that’s chopping up what would otherwise be a fun-sized wave. The swell is a short-period, wind-slop affair, mostly from the ENE, and that’s not doing us any favors. The water temp is sitting at a warm 82° Fahrenheit, which is a touch warmer than normal for this time of year—you’ll notice it feels like bath water.

Friday, September 4th is a write-off. We’re looking at 4ft of messy, short-period swell from the ENE with a cross-on breeze at 15 mph. The combined energy is weak at 77, and it’s just choppy. Not worth the paddle out. The afternoon is the same story, just with the wind going more onshore.

The weekend doesn’t offer much relief. Saturday, September 5th is more of the same—4ft to 5ft of that junky ENE swell, still cross-onshore in the morning, and the energy stays weak to moderate. Sunday, September 6th is similar, with the morning again chopped up. The afternoon might ease up a touch wind-wise but it’s still onshore and short-period.

We go through the first part of the week essentially on repeat. Monday, September 7th and Tuesday, September 8th are still suffering from that easterly cross-on flow. The swell stays small, around 4ft to 4ft, with weak-ish energy. There’s a slight bump in the energy reading on Tuesday afternoon (205), but that’s just from a slightly bigger 6ft bump of windswell—still poor quality. This is a long stretch where the setup looks more interesting for a kite surfer than a paddle surfer, to be honest.

The rest of that first week and into the second is a monotonous tune. Wednesday, September 9th through Monday, September 14th still shows those 4ft to 5ft waves from the ENE, with the dreaded cross-on wind in the mornings and onshore in the afternoons. The swell periods are short, hanging around 6 seconds, which means it’s just lumpy, energy-sapping slop. I see the energy readings starting to climb into the moderate range (138 to 278), which tells you there’s push, but it’s not organised.

Now, for the one bright spot in this whole forecast. Keep your eye on Tuesday, September 15th. The morning still has that cross-on wind, yeah, but the afternoon brings a change. The wind swings to the NE and goes more onshore, but the swell is a touch bigger at 6ft. The energy is up there at 233, which is moderate, but more importantly, the direction of the swell is from the NE, and that matches the optimum direction for this break. It’s still short-period, but for a spot like Farol, having that swell direction line up is key. It’s not going to be perfect—onshore is onshore—but between the better direction and the slightly bigger swell, it might be the most surfable it gets.

After that, the pattern settles back into the same old story. Wednesday, September 16th and Thursday, September 17th are more of the same—messy, choppy, cross-onshore. The energy stays moderate but the quality just isn’t there. It’s all a bit junky.

So, yeah. The long and short of it is, don't get your hopes up for a classic session in the next couple of weeks. The second week has slightly more energy but it comes with the same ride. It’ll take a change in the wind to turn this around, and I don’t see one coming. Stay patient, keep an eye on that 15th, but don’t hold your breath.

Rusty.

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