Southerndown Surf Forecast and Surf Report

GUTTERS… yeah, it’s flat. Proper flat. Looking at the whole 16-day run for Southerndown, and I gotta be straight with you—there is nothing on the board that’s going to get me out of bed early. Not a single score above a zero, and every single entry in the guidance is marked as “poor surf conditions.” That’s a full-blown blank run, which for this stretch of coast, honestly, is more normal than not. These sandbanks need a proper push of swell and the right wind, and we just ain’t getting it in this window.

We start off with a bit of a tease on Thursday the 20th. There’s a small 4ft swell from the WSW, but the wind is howling from the W at 16 mph, cross-onshore and choppy as hell. The combined energy is weak, only 332. Not worth the paddle. That fades fast.

Friday the 21st is glassy in the morning, dead calm air, but the swell drops to 2ft with almost no energy behind it (36). You’d be floating around waiting for nothing. That pattern—tiny swell, clean but empty—holds through the weekend and into the start of next week. There’s some clean mornings with light easterly cross-off winds on Saturday and Sunday, but we’re talking 0.7ft to 1ft dribble with energy readings in the teens and twenties. It’s flat, plain and simple.

Monday the 24th through Tuesday the 25th, the wind picks up from the east, but it’s cross-off and clean, which would be nice if there was any swell. There isn’t. We’re looking at 0.3ft. Just a shimmer on the water.

Then things get proper messy. From Wednesday the 26th, the wind swings southerly and we start seeing some of that onshore junk. The swell tries to pick up a little on the 28th and 29th, reaching 4ft, but it’s a short-period, wind-blown mess—6 to 8 seconds. The combined energy gets up to 191 and 234 on the 30th, but the wind is all over it, cross-onshore, and it’s just lumpy, fat, closed-out lines for the kites, not for us.

The end of the month, the 31st, shows a big spike—a 8ft swell with a very strong energy reading of 1961—but it’s coming from the SW with a 16 to 19 mph onshore wind and a storm risk. That’s not surfable; that’s a washing machine. Over 8ft is experts only, and this is just under that with terrible wind. It’s a pass.

The first few days of September are more of the same. A little 4ft on the 1st, but it’s cross-onshore and bumpy. The 4th has a 3ft swell but a strong breeze at 28 mph is just wrecking it.

So, here’s the long and short of it: there are no good surf options in this entire 16-day window. The water temp is about average for the time of year, so no drama there, but the waves are the problem. It’s a hard, flat, and then messy run. A blank stretch like this is a part of life around here; the banks will shift, the wind will settle, and a proper groundswell will eventually fill the gap. But it won’t be in this forecast. Keep the board in the car anyway. That’s the way it goes.

Rusty.

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