Hitherhills Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G'day, I'm Rusty, and I've got to be straight with you about the outlook for Hitherhills over the next fortnight. Honestly, it's a tough stretch. The forecast shows a real lack of any decent surf energy, with a whole lot of small, weak, and often messy conditions. The water temperature is sitting around 70°F with a water temperature anomaly of -1°F, which is pretty much normal for the time of year, so at least you won't be freezing your bits off while you're waiting for a wave.

The first few days from Wednesday the 5th through to the end of the first week, we're looking at tiny swell – barely 2ft to 3ft, with a short period of just 6 to 7 seconds and combined swell energy values that are weak, mostly between 44 and 81. The winds are mostly cross-shore or cross-onshore, making the surface choppy and messy. There's a few moments on Friday morning the 7th, Saturday morning the 8th, and Sunday morning the 9th where the wind goes light and cross-offshore, cleaning it up a bit, but the swell is still tiny and weak. The score reflects it – "surfable waves but very ordinary conditions" is the best we get, and that's a real stretch.

The second week doesn't offer much hope either. Monday the 10th sees a brief bump in swell to 5ft from the SSW, with a period of 7 seconds and combined energy of 260 (moderate – finally!), but the wind is a cross-shore 15-25 km/h (9-16 mph), so it's still a messy, poor surf. That's about as big as it gets. After that, it's back to tiny 2ft to 3ft surf with poor energy values (mostly in the 20s to 80s) and a mix of cross-offshore morning breezes giving clean-but-waveless conditions, and messy afternoons. The only real standout glimmer is on Saturday morning the 15th of August – we get glassy conditions with a light NNE breeze at just 5 km/h (3 mph), and waves to 3ft from the SSE. It's small, but it'll be the cleanest, most user-friendly wave of the entire period, especially for a beginner spot like Hitherhills. The direction from the SSE isn't a perfect match for the optimum SE direction, but it's close enough. Expect crowds to be possible, as it's the only time it's worth paddling out.

Beyond that, things stay flat and poor. There's a stretch from around the 17th to the 20th with some clean offshore winds, but the swell is still tiny and weak, with combined energy rarely cracking 100. The bottom line is this: if you're desperate for a paddle, the standouts are the glassy Saturday morning the 15th for the cleanest tiny waves, or maybe the slightly bigger but messy Monday the 10th if you just want to get wet. For the rest, it's a real struggle. Conditions look more interesting for a kite session than a surf on the windier, choppier days.

Rusty.

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