Halawa Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Righto, Rusty here. Let’s be honest with you straight up: this 16-day window is looking pretty grim for a proper paddle. The forecast is almost a total write-off, especially for the first week. We’ve got a long stretch of nothing but cross-shore winds, messy chop, and swell angles that are all wrong for the breaks we’d want to surf.

The only spot in the forecast is Halawa, which is a reef/river set-up. It's a fairly consistent wave, but it's just not going to be on for a while. We're looking at about a week of this poor stuff before anything even gets close to resembling a wave with a pulse.

The pattern for the first week is dominated by wind straight out of the ENE, which is exactly the wrong direction for this spot. It’s blowing 19 to 25 mph straight across the swell, making everything lumpy and awful. The surf itself is small and weak, with periods between 7 and 8 seconds, which just means it’s all wind-slop and no power. The combined energy is mostly in the 400s to 600s, so it’s moderate at best, but it’s all for nothing with that wind.

From Monday 31 August right through to the following Sunday, it’s just not happening. The swell direction is ENE, which is completely opposite to the NNW that Halawa really wants to see. The water temp is around average for this time of year, nothing weird there.

Now, there is a little glimmer of something odd on Sunday 06 September in the afternoon. The swell jumps to 8ft with a 12-second period, and the combined energy kicks right up to 2607. But it’s coming from the ENE, which is still the wrong direction. The comment says it's "marginal" at best, and there’s a fresh cross-shore wind keeping it messy. I wouldn’t get too excited.

The following Monday, the 07th, sees the biggest swell of the whole period at 10ft in the morning, but again, it’s from the ENE with a cross-onshore wind. That’s a classic blown-out mess, and a size like that at a reef with that wind is only going to be dangerous and ugly. Not worth it.

Things calm down from Tuesday the 8th onwards, but the damage is done. There are some tiny 0.3ft to 2ft leftovers on the 9th with a light cross-offshore breeze which might look clean, but there's just no energy behind them. It’s not surfable. The rest of the run up to the 15th is just more of the same – small, weak, cross-shore wind slop. The long period swells that show up around the 6th, 7th and 8th are from the wrong direction entirely and will break too straight for a spot like this.

Look, there is no standout day here. The only time the wind is right, the swell is tiny, and the only time the swell is big, the wind is terrible. For a reef set-up, this is not a blank run that’s unusual for the area, but it is a frustrating one. If you're a kitesurfer, some of those strong wind days with 6ft to 10ft of messy swell might look more interesting than for the rest of us.

Keep an eye on the long-range for around the 8th of September. An 11ft NNE swell with a strong onshore wind could be a sign of something better on the way, but as it stands, it's a hard pass.

Stay patient. - Rusty

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