Rat Beach Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Gutted, folks. I’ve been staring at the charts for the next two and a bit weeks and, honestly, it’s a tough one. We’ve got a real dry spell on our hands for the most part. The only spot showing any life is Rat Beach, but it’s a reef setup that’s inconsistent at the best of times, and the forecast just isn’t giving us much to work with. The water is sitting at 72°, which is a massive 7° warmer than normal for this time of year – that’s a real anomaly, you’d be swimming in a bathtub out there.

The first week is essentially a write-off. The swell is tiny and the winds are mostly cross or onshore, which just chops up an already marginal situation. There’s a hint of cleaner conditions on the morning of Sunday the 9th, but with a wave height of only 1ft and a weak energy reading (26), it’s barely a ripple. Nothing to get out of bed for.

Things don’t really improve. We get a slight bump in energy mid-week, with Tuesday the 11th and Wednesday the 12th showing some surfable waves in the mornings. The swell direction is from the southwest, which is okay, but the wave heights are still only 1ft to 2ft. The combined energy on Tuesday morning is 85, which is weak, and even the afternoon reading of 158 is nothing special. The period is a long 18 seconds, which is proper groundswell, but at this size, it’s just not doing anything. It’s the kind of swell that looks pretty on the buoy chart but doesn’t translate to a wave you can actually ride.

The following week, the second week, is more of the same. The morning of Monday the 17th is clean with a light cross-offshore breeze, but the swell is still tiny at 2ft and the energy is a weak 33. There’s a slightly more interesting morning on Tuesday the 18th, with a moderate southeast offshore wind and the swell jumping up to 3ft, but the period drops to a poor 6 seconds. That’s just short-period windswell, and it’s going to be weak and crumbly. The energy reading of 75 confirms it’s all a bit lackluster.

Honestly, there’s not a single standout day here. The only thing even close to a recommendation is the morning of Tuesday the 18th, when that offshore wind will at least make it look pretty, but the wave quality is going to be poor. It’s more of a “have a look if you’re desperate” sort of deal. For the most part, this setup looks more interesting for the kite surfers than us paddle surfers, with the onshore winds and marginal swell. The long gaps of nothing are the real story. We’ve got a solid ten days of nothing before that brief, weak pulse, and then it fades back out again. It’s a bleak outlook, but it tends not to stay poor for long around here. Forecasts can change, so I’ll keep an eye on it.

Rusty.

Read more