Mount Maunganui Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s have a look at what’s cookin’ for the Mount.

Well, I gotta be straight with ya – it’s a slow start. The first week and a half is pretty grim. There’s a whole lot of days with tiny, weak swell and poor surf conditions. You’ll be looking at a solid nine days of nothing worth paddling out for, from the 1st of September right through to the 9th. The waves are just too small and the energy is way too low, with combined swell energy readings mostly under 100 (like 34, 15, 17). The wind is mostly cross-off or cross, but the swell is just not there. It’s a real bummer.

Things start to tease us on the 10th of September. Thursday morning we finally get a little something. The swell is still tiny at 1ft from the NE, but the period jumps up to 13 seconds – that’s proper groundswell energy. The wind is glassy, with a combined energy of 57. It’s surfable, but I’d call it “very ordinary”. You’ll get a wave, but you’ll work for it. The water temp is 58°, which is bang on average for this time of year, so no worries there.

The real standout, if you can call it that, is looking like Sunday the 13th of September. We’ve got some decent size on the way. The swell builds to 8ft on Sunday morning from the ENE, with a period of 7 seconds. The combined energy jumps to 565 (moderate to strong). The wind is light and onshore, but it gets a little better by the afternoon. That afternoon has 8ft swell from the ENE, period 7 seconds, and a combined energy of 966. The wind is a light cross-onshore. Now, this is a lot of water moving. At over 8ft, this is really only for the experts. The mount is a beach break, and with a short period like that, it’s going to be a lumpy, powerful mess. It’s got marginal conditions written all over it. If you’re a solid surfer, you might find a few, but it’s not for the faint of heart. The crowd is sometimes an issue here, so with a bit of size, it’ll be a battle.

For the rest of the second week, from the 14th to the 16th, it looks like it fades back into smaller, onshore, messy conditions. Not much to write home about.

So, to sum it up: the only real window of size is that Sunday the 13th, and it’s a proper expert-only affair with lumpy, short-period, onshore waves. The rest of the 16 days is a right-off for most of us.

Rusty

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