Onemana Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here. Let’s talk about the surf for the coming weeks.

Right now, it’s a slow start. There’s not a single good wave on offer at the start of the period. The first few days are pretty grim. Saturday the 11th and Sunday the 12th are a write-off—waves are small, weak and cross-on. On Sunday afternoon at Onemana things try to perk up a touch with glassy conditions and a tiny 2ft swell, but it’s still underwhelming. Monday and Tuesday are barely worth a look. We’ve got a dry spell essentially from now until the middle of the month, with a few days of near-flat conditions.

Around Tuesday the 14th afternoon we see a tiny bump of 3ft with a short 6-second period, but it’s not enough to get excited. The real shift comes late in the week. Friday the 17th morning brings offshore winds out of the WSW, with a 1ft swell, but the magic is in the 16-second period—very long groundswell. It’s small, but it’s clean and glassy. The energy is weak (80 combined energy). By Friday afternoon, it picks up a little to 2ft with an even longer 15-second period and still clean offshore winds. That’s the standout of the first week: Onemana on Friday afternoon. It’s not big, but the conditions will be tidy for an intermediate surfer.

After that, the smaller swell sticks around through the weekend and into Monday the 20th, but wind turns bad and the waves drop away again.

Now, looking further out—this is where it gets heavy. From about Tuesday the 21st, things change drastically. The surf builds quickly but so does the wind. On Tuesday the 21st afternoon, we’ve got 5ft of short-period, wind-affected swell (combined energy 282), but it’s cross-on and messy. This is more of a kite-surfing setup than a paddle-surf session. By Wednesday the 22nd, it’s 5ft in the morning and builds to 8ft in the afternoon, with strong onshore winds. This is only for the experienced.

The real beast arrives Thursday the 23rd through to Saturday the 26th of July. Swell heights hit 13ft to 15ft with enormous combined energy readings well into the thousands—4,422 and even 8,397 on the Saturday the 25th. But, and it’s a big but, the wind is howling onshore from the east at 19–22 mph. Rain showers and light rain make it grim. This is a massive, powerful swell but it’s unsurfable for any reasonable session. It’s a spectacle, not a surf day.

So, if you’re holding out for something decent, the only real standout in this outlook is Onemana on Friday the 17th in the afternoon. Small but clean, offshore, and that long-period swell should give some fun, lined-up waves. Everything else is either flat, blown out, or way too big for comfort.

Rusty.

Read more