Playa Pantaleta Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, surfers, it’s Rusty here. Let’s have a look at the stretch ahead. It’s a bit of a mixed bag for Playa Pantaleta, so I’m gonna break it down day by day.

The first week and a half or so is pretty grim. We’re looking at mostly small, weak, short-period wind swell getting chopped up by a constant cross-shore breeze. The energy is just not there, with combined energy barely cracking the 100s at its best early on, and often way below that. The water’s sitting at 80° with a small negative anomaly, so nothing weird there, just about normal for this time of year. Essentially, it’s a lot of paddling for not much reward, with that onshore/cross breeze making everything a bit of a mess.

We start off on Saturday the 8th with a weak 3ft ENE swell at 6 seconds. The wind is a moderate 12 mph cross-shore, and it’s just making things terrible. The per-day energy is only 93, which is truly weak. This poor surf is going to be the story for many days. Sunday the 9th is a bit smaller at 3ft, but the breeze is still on it. As we head into Monday and Tuesday, the swell bumps up slightly to 4-5ft, and the energy gets a little more moderate, peaking around 178 on the 10th, but the quality is still lousy. The period stays around 7 seconds, so it’s just bumpy, short-interval slop.

The pattern continues through the next week. We see some push on the 13th and 14th with swell heights hitting 5ft on the Thursday afternoon and 5ft on the Friday, with moderate energy. Still, those crosswinds are relentless, and it’s all being classified as poor surf. The period is still short, between 7 and 8 seconds, so it’s not going to be organized.

Now, things start to get interesting around Saturday the 15th. A long-period swell starts to show up, with the period jumping to 11 seconds. The swell builds to a solid 6ft on the Saturday morning, and soon after, we get a real pulse. The combined energy jumps to 980 on the morning of the 15th and then to a strong 1148 by the afternoon. This is the most exciting part of the whole forecast, but we have to take it with a grain of salt because it’s a week out. The quality is still being called marginal due to questionable tide and the cross-shore winds. It's going to be a bigger, more powerful groundswell, and for Playa Pantaleta, this longer period might actually favor it. But, it’s still a week away, so we can call it promising, but not a sure thing.

The long-period energy is still around as we get into the 18th. On Tuesday morning the 18th, the wind drops out completely to glassy conditions with a slight air, and the swell is still a healthy 5ft from the ENE. The combined energy comes in at 340. This is when it might actually come together for a window of clean surf. We get another glassy morning on the 17th, but it’s smaller at 3ft. The 18th morning looks like the pick of the bunch – that combination of a solid groundswell and no wind is what we’re after. After that, the crosswinds return and the energy fades.

From the 19th onwards, it’s a slow fade back into the poor, weak conditions we saw at the start. The swell drops back down below 5ft, the period shortens back down to 7 seconds, and the cross-shore winds are back. It’s a pretty clear end to the action.

So, my call is this: the first half of the period is a write-off for a proper surf. But it’s not all bad. The standout window is around the morning of Tuesday, August 18th. We have a nice 5ft ENE groundswell with clean, glassy conditions and moderate wave energy at 340. That’s the one to keep an eye on. The weekend before, the 15th, will have more size and energy, but the wind and tides look questionable, so that one is more of a gamble for the experienced crew.

Keep it on the radar, and let’s see how it shapes up. This is Rusty, signing off.

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