Galveston Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, I’m Rusty. Let’s chat about the next 16 days for the Galveston coastline. I’ll level with ya – there’s nothing good on the menu. Not a single surf session that I’d bother waxing up for. The swell is tiny, the wind is mostly trash, and the conditions are a mess from start to finish. This blank stretch runs from now, through the end of July, and all the way to the 12th of August. That’s a long, quiet period.

The only break we’re looking at is Galveston, a breakwater spot that’s inconsistent and rarely delivers. For the first few days – Tuesday the 28th of July through to Friday the 1st of August – the swell height is barely 2 ft to 3 ft, coming from the south or southwest, with periods as short as 4 seconds. That’s windswell, not groundswell. The combined energy is weak, mostly in the 12 to 22 range. Winds are a moderate to fresh breeze out of the south or southwest, cross-on or straight onshore. The water temp is sitting at a warm 87°, which is a touch warmer than normal for this time of year, but you won’t be worrying about that when you’re staring at flat, choppy water.

From Saturday the 1st of August onward, it stays rough. Swell stays under 3 ft, period rarely gets past 5 seconds, and the energy figures stay in the weak teens to low thirties. There’s a brief moment on the morning of Monday the 3rd where we get a light cross-offshore breeze from the west at 6 mph, and the report calls it clean – but with only 2 ft of weak south swell and a 5-second period, “clean” just means you’ll have a nice view of the flat horizon. Still not worth it.

The second week, from the 5th of August onward, the swell drops even more – we’re talking 0.7 ft to 1 ft at times. The wind stays mostly onshore or cross-onshore, and the combined energy dips into single digits (6 to 11). That’s as dead as it gets. The last few days, the 11th and 12th of August, see the swell just barely nudge up to 3 ft from the south-southeast with a period of 6 seconds and energy creeping up to 43 – still far too weak and short-period to do anything with, especially with a moderate cross-onshore breeze ruining any chance of a clean face.

If you’re a paddler, this 16-day outlook is a washout. For this area, a blank run like this isn’t a surprise – Galveston is an inconsistent spot that rarely fires, so when the swell is this small and the wind is this poor, you just have to roll with it. If you’re into kite surfing, the stronger south winds on the afternoons of the 1st and 2nd of August might catch your eye, but for a surfboard? Forget it. Forecasts can change, but as it stands, there’s nothing to chase.

Rusty.

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