Lunada Bay Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, surfers, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you. This outlook for the next couple of weeks is a tough one. We’re looking at a real flat spell, and I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. There’s a stretch of days where you’d be better off mending your leash than paddling out.

The whole window is plagued by small, weak swells and a lot of onshore wind. The energy is there at times, but it’s all mush and bump. We’re talking about a combined swell energy that occasionally bumps past the 300 mark, like we see on the afternoon of the 15th (374) and the morning of the 16th (401), but that energy is not coming in as any kind of clean, surfable wave. It’s just messy.

Right off the bat, for the first several days, forget it. Saturday the 8th through to Wednesday the 13th is completely blown out with poor surf conditions. You’ll be fighting light cross-onshore breezes and ripples. The swell is barely cracking 2 ft or 2 ft, with periods of 13 to 17 seconds. Long period, sure, but there’s just no size to push it onto the reef here at Lunada Bay (Palos Verdes). The water is a very unusual 72° on the morning of Saturday the 8th – that’s 7° warmer than normal for this time of year, which is something else, but it won't help the waves.

The first real glimmer of hope comes on Thursday morning, the 14th. It’s glassy, with just a slight air. The swell is still tiny at 1 ft, with a period of 19 seconds, and the energy is decent at 246. It’s surfable, but just barely. You’ll be on a longboard, scratching for anything. That’s the best of a pretty bad bunch for a while.

We then go into another poor stretch through the 15th, 16th, and 17th. The winds turn onshore again, and it’s just not worth it. I see a few “marginal” calls on the morning of the 16th and 17th with the swell bumping up to 3 ft and 2 ft respectively, but the wind is just ruining any chance of a clean face. You’d be surfing whitewater.

The back half of the period, from the 18th onwards, remains small and inconsistent. There are a couple of mornings where the wind switches to a cross-offshore, like Wednesday the 19th and Friday the 21st. That will clean things up, but you’re still looking at ankle-biters in the 1 ft to 2 ft range with 14 to 16 second periods. It will be clean, but well under head-high. The energy stays moderate, in the 150 to 300 range, but it’s just not producing any real waves for this spot.

Honestly, the standout here is that Thursday morning, the 14th. It’s not going to be epic, but it’s the only time the conditions line up to give you a genuinely clean, glassy surf. Beyond that, the second week offers some clean mornings, but no size. It’s a waiting game.

This spot is known for picking up west-northwest swells, and with the swell coming consistently from the south-southwest, it’s just not lighting up. Hang tight.

Rusty

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