Le Poux Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Right, grab a coffee, because I’m looking at Le Poux and the next sixteen days, and there’s a proper story to tell here.

First off, the water is currently sitting at about 69°, which is a solid 5° warmer than what’s normal for this time of year. That is very unusual – it’s like the ocean’s had a hot flush, and it’s making the air feel a bit strange. Don’t let it fool you, though, because the surf forecast is a real mixed bag of tears and a couple of tiny smiles.

We start on Tuesday the 18th of August with some energy in the water, around 4ft from the west, but it’s a short-period wind swell of only 6 seconds. That’s weak, with combined energy sitting at just 89. To top it off, we’re getting a fresh 30 km/h onshore wind. The result? Poor conditions,
not a single thing to get out of bed for.

Wednesday the 19th is the one day that almost breaks the drought. In the morning, we get a tiny bit of hope. The swell has dropped to about 2ft from the west, but the wind goes glassy – 5 km/h from the NW, dead calm. The combined energy is only 44, and the waves are weak, but they are surfable, and the glassy surface would be clean. It’s the only time in the entire 16-day window where those two words – “surfable” and “glassy” – sit in the same sentence. If you were desperate, that Wednesday morning is your absolute best bet. The afternoon, though, turns into a choppy mess.

From Wednesday afternoon all the way through to the end of August, it’s a wasteland. We’re talking days and days of poor surf conditions. There are a few pulses of bigger swell – Thursday the 20th sees a west swell hit 5ft with 175 of combined energy, and again on Thursday the 27th with 5ft and 357 of energy. But the wind is always onshore, cross-onshore, or just plain ugly. That Thursday the 27th has a near gale of 50 km/h from the SSW. That’s not for surfing – that’s for kite surfing if you’re mad enough.

The only other thing that catches the eye is at the far end of the forecast, on Tuesday the 1st of September. The swell jumps to 8ft from the west, with a combined energy of 756 – that’s strong wave energy, a proper pulse. But the wind is a strong 40 km/h from the NW, which is cross-onshore and “strong cross-onshore and messy.” That’s expert territory only, and even then, it’ll be a battle. Wednesday the 2nd of September is slightly better at 5ft from the WNW with 350 of energy, but still cross-onshore and choppy. Not a clean wave to be had.

In short, for a break that “rarely breaks” anyway, this is a very poor run. There is a single, tiny moment of hope on Wednesday the 19th of August for the morning glass-off. If you go then, you get the only surfable wave of the whole period. For everything else? It’s a pass.

Rusty.

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