Mawgan Porth Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Right, grab a coffee, because I’ve been staring at the charts for Mawgan Porth and, well, to be brutally honest, it’s a pretty grim picture for the next couple of weeks. You’re going to need a lot of patience. The forecast is full of wind screaming onshore or cross-onshore, and even when the swell shows up, the conditions just won’t play ball.

Let’s start with the immediate outlook. The first solid bit of recommended surf is a long way off, and there are several days of proper dud conditions to get through first. For the rest of this week and into the weekend, we’ve got a messy run of poor surf. The wind is mostly out of the west-northwest or northwest, blowing straight on or cross-on, turning what little swell there is into a bumpy, chopped-up mess. The water temp is sitting at about 66°, which is a touch warmer than normal for this time of year, but that’s about the only positive.

The first real glimmer of hope is on Saturday, the 22nd of August. The morning is looking glassy, with a light north-easterly puff and only a tiny 1ft west swell creeping in. The wave energy is weak, just 55 (combined energy), so it’s really ordinary conditions, barely surfable. You’ll be scratching for anything. Still, it’s the cleanest we see for a while. If you have a longboard and are desperate, that’s your window. The afternoon turns cross-shore and the swell goes tiny, so don’t get your hopes up for the day.

Sunday the 23rd and Monday the 24th are total write-offs, with 0.7ft to 1.0ft swell. There’s a very long-period groundswell on the Sunday (14 seconds), but it’s so small it’s barely a ripple - not enough to push a limpet off a rock. The energy readings are in the 40s to 20s, so bottom-of-the-barrel stuff.

We then get another big gap of a few days with basically nothing worth paddling for. The wind keeps switching around but never reliably offshore for any decent size.

A slight uptick arrives on Tuesday the 25th of August. The morning brings a 8ft west-southwest swell with 9-second period. That’s a moderate wave energy reading of 845, which is a heap more power than we’ve seen. Now, don’t get too excited - the wind is a moderate cross-offshore from the south-southeast, which will keep the faces reasonably clean, but the guidance says “questionable tide conditions.” This is really for the experienced crew only; 8ft is getting into expert territory. The problem is the afternoon drops to 6ft with a 19 mph cross-offshore breeze, and the quality slides back into poor conditions. If you’re an advanced surfer and the banks are holding, the morning of the 25th is the standout of the whole forecast. But it’s a one-trick pony, and then it’s gone.

The rest of the week into early September is more of the same onshore punishment. There is a tiny window on Thursday the 27th of August with a glassy morning and a 5ft west-southwest swell. The energy is moderate at 264, but the wind is light out of the north-northwest. It’s surfable, but ordinary. The afternoon gets ruined by a cross-onshore. A similar glassy chance appears on Saturday the 29th of August, but the swell is only 3ft from the southwest. Not worth the drive unless you live around the corner.

Look, to be fair, the spot itself is a river-mouth setup, fairly exposed to the west-northwest. If the charts change and a clean westerly groundswell arrives with lighter winds, it could turn on. But based on this outlook, you’re looking at a whole lot of sitting in the car park waiting for the wind to drop.

Rusty.

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