Packery Channel Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, let’s get honest here. I’m looking at the next couple of weeks around Packery Channel, and straight up – there’s nothing good on offer. This is one of those painful gaps where we just don’t have any surf worth paddling out for.

The whole 16-day window shows no real surf. Every single one of these forecasts has a score of zero out of ten, which tells me the combination of swell, wind, and conditions isn't there. The weak combined swell energy sits mostly between 28 and 102 (moderate energy), and it never gets above that, but the real killer is the wind. It's almost always a cross-onshore breeze, often a moderate to fresh breeze (10–22 mph), and that’s making the water choppy and lumpy.

The swell is tiny, ranging from 2 ft to 4 ft, with short periods of 5 to 8 seconds, so there’s no power and the shape is going to be poor. The swell direction is consistently from the SE or SSE, which for Packery Channel – an exposed, east-facing breakwater – means it's coming from the wrong side a lot of the time. The optimum swell is from the SE, so that part matches, but the quality is destroyed by the wind.

There’s not a single morning or afternoon in the entire window that gets a clean, glassy, or even light-offshore wind. The best wind we see is a light breeze on the morning of August 18th, but it’s still cross-onshore, and the swell is only 2 ft with an 8-second period. That’s weak, short-period windswell.

Water temperature is around 83°, with a near-normal anomaly of -0.2°, so it’s average for this time of year – that’s the only thing that’s not a letdown.

To be blunt: Packery Channel goes through runs like this where the swell just doesn’t show up. It’s a fairly consistent spot normally, but when it’s flat and the wind is onshore, you better have a kite. With the cross-onshore winds and tiny surf, this setup actually looks more interesting for kite surfing than paddle surfing.

Signing off – Rusty.

Read more