Panoramas Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here. Let’s have a look at what’s on the cards for Panoramas over the next couple of weeks.

Straight up, I’ll be honest with you, this is a pretty quiet stretch. The swell is hanging around small for most of the run, and the wind is often a bit of a pain, coming from the wrong side of the compass. The forecast is showing a lot of “poor surf conditions” labels, so we’re not talking about any epic sessions here. There’s a big gap of nothing really worth paddling out for in the first few days, with the first real glimmer of hope not showing up until Thursday the 16th.

For the whole period, the swell is coming from the NW, which is right in the sweet spot for Panoramas, so that’s a positive. The problem is the size. It’s tiny. Through the first week, we’re looking at waves around 2 ft to 3 ft, mostly with a short period of 7 to 8 seconds. That’s weak, local wind swell, not the kind of energy that gets the heart pumping. The combined energy is mostly in the double digits, like 44 on the 14th, climbing to 115 on the 16th afternoon, which is still just moderate energy. The water temp is about average for the time of year, nothing crazy there.

The real standout, if you can call it that, is Thursday morning the 16th of July. It’s the first time the score dials up to a “1”, and the conditions are described as “surfable waves but very ordinary”. The magic is in the morning: a clear sky, glassy wind from the SW at 5 km/h, and a 0.7m (2 ft) NW swell. That’s about as clean as it’s going to get. The afternoon sees a jump in swell to 1.0m (3 ft), but the wind swings NW at 20 km/h, turning it choppy and cross-onshore. So, that Thursday morning window is the one to watch.

After that, the forecast drops back to “poor surf conditions” for days on end. There’s a slight uptick in energy around the 23rd, with the swell hitting 1.1m (4 ft) and the combined energy climbing to 213 on the afternoon, but the wind is still cross-onshore and the quality is rated as poor. It’s just not clean enough to get excited about. The period is still short at 8 seconds, so it’s not going to have any real punch.

The second week continues the same story. The swell stays around 1.0m (3 ft), the period starts to stretch a little to 9 or 10 seconds by the 28th, which is a bit better for shape, but the wind is still cross or cross-onshore. The 28th morning has a cross-shore breeze from the SSE at 10 km/h, which is a slightly better angle, but with the swell at 1.0m (3 ft) and a 10-second period, it’s just a faint hope.

Overall, there’s no big, clean swell on the horizon. The best bet is a very small, glassy window on the morning of Thursday the 16th of July. After that, it’s a lot of waiting and hoping for the forecasts to change. For a spot that’s consistent, this is a lean patch.

Rusty.

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