Pismo Beach Pier Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s get into it.

First things first, I gotta be straight with you: the next 16 days at Pismo Beach Pier are looking like a real mixed bag, and honestly, not a whole lot to get genuinely stoked about. The surf is mostly small and struggling with onshore and cross-shore winds. We’ve got a long stretch of days where the conditions are just marginal at best. There’s a big gap from the start with no real good surf, but let’s break it down.

We kick off on Tuesday, July 21st. The morning has a weak 3ft swell from the SW with a period of 14 seconds, energy is low, and it’s blown out by a light onshore breeze. The water is sitting at 59°, which is a bit colder than what we usually expect this time of year. Not a great start.

Wednesday the 22nd and Thursday the 23rd are write-offs. The wind picks up, the swell stays small, and the conditions are poor. Thursday afternoon actually sees a bump in swell to 7ft from the WNW, but it’s a short-period 7-second windswell with a moderate cross-breeze. That’s big, messy, and bumpy – not a paddle surfer’s friend.

We get a bit of a weird period from Friday the 24th through to the end of the month. The swell drops back to tiny (2ft to 4ft), but the period gets really long. Friday morning, for instance, has a 3ft SW swell with a 24-second period. That’s super long-period groundswell energy, with a lot of power in the water. But the problem is it’s breaking on a beach break setup with a cross-onshore wind. That long period will make it close out and won’t be the clean, lined-up waves we want. The energy is decent, but the quality isn’t there.

The best the whole run has to offer, and I mean the only real standout, is looking like Monday, August 3rd. The morning shows a solid 8ft swell from the NW with a 9-second period, and the wind is light and directly offshore from the SSW. The combined energy is very strong. This is a clean, powerful, head-high-plus wave. However, that size is pushing into expert territory – it’s going to be a handful for beginners. The afternoon holds similar size (6ft) with lighter offshore winds from the WSW. If you’re an experienced surfer, this is your window. It’s a long way off, so the forecast might wobble, but it’s the only day that has the combo of size and clean wind.

The rest of the first week of August is just more of the same: small, short-period, choppy surf. The swell stays below 5ft for most of it, with the exception of a couple of afternoons, but the wind is always cross or cross-on.

So, the bottom line: it’s a lean period. The waves are mostly small, the wind is mostly wrong, and the one day that looks promising (August 3rd) is for the experts. Don’t plan a trip around it, but if you’re local, keep an eye on that Monday.

Rusty

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