Penhale Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Look, I’ve been staring at the charts for Penhale and, honestly, it’s a pretty bleak outlook for the next couple of weeks. The good news is we’ve got one standout session that’s worth circling on the calendar, but the rest of the run is a whole lot of nothing. The water temp is sitting at 65°, which is a solid 4° warmer than usual for this time of year – that’s much warmer than normal, so you can leave the 4/3 at home for that one good day.

We kick off with a tiny pulse on Tuesday afternoon, 14 July. There’s a 0.7ft swell from the WSW with a super long period of 18 seconds, but the combined energy is a weak 70, so it’s barely there. The wind is light offshore from the ESE at 6 mph, so it’s clean, but you’re going to be scratching for anything rideable. It’s surfable but very ordinary. After that, it’s a dead zone. From Wednesday 15 July all the way through to Friday 24 July, the surf is poor. We’re talking 1ft to 3ft of weak, short-period slop, mostly from the north or northwest, with periods of 5 or 6 seconds. The wind is all over the place – offshore, cross, cross-on – but it doesn’t matter because there’s no real swell. The energy readings are mostly in the 20s and 30s, which is basically flat. Even the few cleaner moments with offshore winds, like Sunday 19 July morning and Wednesday 22 July morning, are still just miserable ankle-biters. There’s a gap of about 10 days here with no real recommendations.

Now, onto the standout. The best session on offer is Saturday 25 July afternoon. It’s still not pumping, but it’s the pick of the bunch. The swell is 3ft from the west, with a period of 6 seconds, and the combined energy is 128 – moderate. The wind is glassy, from the ENE at just 3 mph, so the surface will be clean as a whistle. That’s the main selling point: flat, glassy conditions at a break that’s fairly exposed to the west. It’s a beginner-friendly spot, so it’s a good chance for a longboard or a foiler to get some gentle rides. The swell direction is W, which matches the optimum swell direction for Penhale, so it’s working as well as it can.

Sunday 26 July through to Wednesday 29 July, the swell actually builds significantly, but the wind turns ugly. We get a 7ft west swell on Monday 27 July with a combined energy of 581, which is strong, and even 702 on the Monday afternoon. But the wind is cross-shore or cross-onshore from the south at 15 to 22 mph – fresh breeze. That’s going to turn it into a messy, choppy, blown-out mess. The period is short (8-10 seconds), and with that wind, it’s not going to hold shape. For a beach break, that’s a kite-surfing setup, not a paddle surfer’s dream. The water might be warm, but the conditions are poor. For the beginner crowd, anything over 5ft is too big, and this is well above that, so it’s strictly for experts, and even then, the wind will ruin it.

So, to wrap it up: the only window worth paddling out is Saturday 25 July afternoon for the glassy, clean, small waves. Everything else is either too small, too windy, or both. It’s a long, flat run, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Rusty

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