Salamumu Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you – the next couple of weeks are looking pretty grim for a proper paddle at Salamumu. The swell shows up, but the wind is just out to get us, cross and cross-onshore, keeping everything blown out and messy. We’re looking at a solid stretch of poor surf conditions from the get-go, with nothing rideable on offer for at least the first week.

The weekend of the 9th and into the new week starts with a building swell – we’re talking 8ft on Sunday morning, pushing to 10ft by Monday. The energy is there, with combined values hitting 1085 and then jumping to a strong 6172 on Monday morning. That’s a lot of water moving, but it’s all for nothing with that strong cross-shore wind and lumpy, messy cross-chop. It’s going to be a washing machine out there, and not the fun kind.

The swell drops a bit mid-week, down to around 6ft on Tuesday, but the wind stays fresh and cross, so it’s still chopped up. The period is around 14 seconds, which is decent, but it’s just not going to be clean. We’re looking at days of "poor surf conditions" and "marginal" calls.

Things start to ease off a little later in the week, but the swell also drops away pretty quickly. By Friday the 14th, we’re down to under 3ft, and it stays small for the next few days – think 2ft to 3ft of weak, short-period SW swell. The energy is weak, with all combined values under 600. It’s flat and not worth getting excited about.

The real bright spot, and I mean the *only* bright spot, arrives on Wednesday the 19th. The swell is still modest – around 4ft – coming from the SW with a 16-second period. But finally, the wind switches to a light cross-offshore breeze, first from the ENE, then from the NNE in the afternoon. The file calls it "clean" – and I’ll take that. This is the one day in the whole window where Salamumu (Samoa) will have a chance to actually hold its shape. The water temp is 81°, which is about normal for this time of year, no big anomaly there.

After that, the wind swings back onshore and the swell gets messy again. By the 21st, we’ve got a bit more size (6ft), but it’s cross-onshore and choppy. And then the last weekend of the forecast window – the 22nd and 23rd – brings more strong winds and rain, with the swell building back up to 8ft, but it's all cross-onshore and lumpy. There’s a long-period groundswell in there on the 23rd (19 seconds, 2273 energy), but it’s unsurfable with the wind.

So, if you’re flexible, mark out Wednesday the 19th. It’s not a standout for size, but it’s the only day where the conditions might actually let you surf. Everything else is a write-off. Bring a kite if you’re into that, because the beach setup will be more interesting for that than a surfboard for the next week and a half.

Rusty

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