La Barra Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Righto, let’s have a look at what’s cookin' for La Barra. This is a beach and reef setup that's pretty exposed, so it catches most of what's thrown at it. The water temperature’s sittin' at a touch warmer than normal for this time of year—75°, which is about a degree and a half above average, so a little less of a bite on the morning paddle.

Honestly, for the next sixteen days, it’s a tough slog. We’ve got a big blank run of poor surf conditions right through. The waves are all comin' from a north-northeasterly direction, but the wind is almost always a cross-onshore breeze, chopping everything up. The swell itself is weak to moderate at best—the combined energy figures are mostly in the low hundreds, peaking around 455 on the morning of Saturday the 15th, but that's still not enough to overcome the wind.

From Tuesday the 11th right through to... well, pretty much the end of the window on Wednesday the 26th of August, every session is marked as poor. The swell height hovers between 3ft and 6ft, but the period is short, just 6 to 9 seconds, so it’s all wind-slop and short-period junk. The cross-onshore winds, anywhere from 9 to 16 mph, just ruin any chance of a clean face. This isn’t just a few bad days; it’s a solid two-week-plus stretch of messy, choppy surf. For a spot that’s usually very consistent, that’s a real bummer.

Given the persistent cross-onshore wind and the choppy, short-period swell at an exposed beach and reef setup, this honestly looks more interesting for kite surfing than a paddle session. There is a tiny flicker on Tuesday the 25th and Wednesday the 26th where the wind goes cross-shore rather than cross-on, but the swell is still small and weak—nothing to get excited about. There’s nothing here that stands out as a true winner. It’s a waiting game, I reckon. We just gotta hope the forecasts change.

- Rusty

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