Polihale Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here with a look at what Polihale has cookin' for us over the next couple of weeks. It’s a bit of a mixed bag, but there's some life in the longer range that has me keen.

Polihale is our only real game in town for this stretch, a big exposed sandbar that needs a specific NW or NE angle to fire. The water temp feels about what you'd expect for this time of year, nothing wild.

Right now, we're looking at a slow start. Saturday the 22nd kicks off with tiny 3ft to 4ft swell from the WNW. The big win is that Saturday morning is glassy, dead calm wind, and the afternoon goes cross-off with light 5 km/h breezes. The swell energy is moderate (361 on Sunday arvo), but the wave heights are just small. It’s clean, but small. Sunday the 23rd stays clean but drops even further to 2ft, and by Monday the 24th we get a risk of thunderstorms and a bumpy cross-off wind picking up to 15 mph. It gets messy.

We then hit a real dry spell. From Tuesday the 27th right through to Saturday the 29th, it’s pretty much flat to straight garbage. Swell heights are under 2ft or non-existent, and the combined energy plummets to under 30. It's a big gap of nothing, with light winds but no power in the water at all.

Hold onto your boards, because things change on Sunday the 30th of August. A solid pulse of NE swell rolls in, hitting 6ft with a short, punchy period of 7-8 seconds. The combined energy jumps to 382 – that’s powerful stuff. Winds stay light cross-off from the ENE at 6 mph, keeping things clean. This is the standout window for experts. 6ft on an exposed sandbar like Polihale is a solid step up from the ankle-biters. Monday the 31st keeps that energy going with 5ft from the NE, again with light airs and clean conditions. That whole Sunday-Monday window is the call.

There’s a little more on Tuesday the 1st of September with another 5ft NE pulse, this time with a 10-second period and a serious 471 energy reading. Winds are light again. It's promising, but we're pushing a week and a half out, so keep an eye on it. By Wednesday the 2nd, the swell backs off a touch to 5ft and we get some cross-onshore wind, making the conditions a bit more ordinary.

The very end of the run, around the 3rd and 4th of September, sees a switch to a tiny, long-period W swell. Periods of 13-15 seconds are long, but with wave heights barely reaching 2ft, it’s more of a glassy, calm water session than anything with punch. The 6th of September has a weird 2ft SW groundswell with an 18-second period, but combined energy is only 154.

So, bottom line: this is a two-part forecast. A tiny, clean start, a total flat spell in the middle, and then a window of real, clean NE swell from the 30th of August through the 1st of September. That's your go-time. Get on it.

Rusty.

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