Packery Channel Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s have a look at what’s cooking for the next couple of weeks.

Honestly, straight up, it’s a difficult stretch. We’re looking at a long, almost complete blank run with no good surf on offer for the entire 16-day window. The forecast is a flat spell with small, weak, short-period windswell that just won’t get its act together.

The only spot in the mix is Packery Channel (Packery-Channel, Texas). The water temps are sitting at about 86°, which is about 2° warmer than average for this time of year – a little toastier than usual, but not crazy.

Kicking off from Thursday afternoon, 20 August, we’ve got tiny 2ft swell from the SE with a period of just 5 seconds and a combined energy of only 26 (weak). The wind is a fresh cross-onshore breeze at 19 mph, which is making for lumpy, poor conditions. This same story pretty much repeats day after day. Friday morning, 21 August, sees 3ft from the SSE with a 5-second period (combined energy 38), but still a moderate cross-onshore wind making it choppy. Every afternoon and morning through the week is the same – small, short-period swell, cross-onshore or onshore winds, and the wave comment is consistently “poor surf conditions.”

The weekend? Saturday 22 August offers a tiny 2ft cross-shore morning with light winds, but the swell is so weak (combined energy 21) it’s barely rideable. Sunday is even smaller at 2ft.

The pattern doesn’t change. Through the rest of August and into the first week of September, we see the swell height occasionally bump up to 3ft or 4ft (like on Monday 31 August morning and Tuesday 1 September morning), and the combined energy edges into the 50s and 80s – still weak to moderate. But the period stays stuck at 5–6 seconds, which is pure windswell, and the wind remains cross-onshore, often fresh at 16–19 mph. The last few days of the forecast, around 4 September, we get 4ft swell from the SE with a 6-second period and combined energy hitting 97 (close to moderate), but the wind is still cross-onshore and choppy.

There’s no standout session here. Nothing is clean, nothing has any power or shape. The swell direction is always from the SE or SSE, which is not the optimum direction for Packery Channel (optimum is SE, so it’s not terrible, but it’s not helping). The breaks are “beginner” level and “fairly consistent,” but with such poor quality and constantly onshore winds, it’s not worth a paddle. With the small, weak, wind-affected surf, this setup might be more interesting for kite surfers than paddle surfers.

So, my call is: don’t hold your breath. There are no good surf options in this 16-day window. But the break is fairly consistent usually, so it’s likely this flat spell will pass – forecasts can always change.

Rusty.

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