Tauranga Bay Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here. Let's have a look at what's cooking for Tauranga Bay.

Honestly, it's a pretty grim run for the next couple of weeks. The swell window just isn't working with us at all. We're looking at a long stretch of tiny, weak energy and the wrong wind direction messing things up for days on end. It's going to be a real patience tester.

Starting from Sunday the 23rd of August right through to Friday the 4th of September, there's just nothing worth paddling out for. The swell is tiny, mostly under 3 ft, and when there is a little bit of energy, the wind is usually howling from the WNW or NW, putting a nasty chop on the surface. The combined swell energy is weak, barely cracking 50 (24 to 56) for most of that first week. Even the glassy mornings on the 25th and 26th only have ankle-snappers of 0.3 ft to 0.7 ft – not enough to get wet for.

The first hint of something happening comes on Saturday the 29th of August. We get a cleaner morning with a light SSW offshore wind. The swell picks up a touch to 3 ft from the NNE, with the combined energy reaching a modest 110. It's surfable, but very ordinary. The same goes for Sunday the 30th of August morning – a clean 3 ft from the NE with energy at 144. But the wind is a light cross-offshore, so it's not perfect. These are the only two half-decent windows in the entire run, and they're still just small and average.

After that, it's back to small, weak conditions. The combined energy drops back below 100 for the rest of the run. There's a final flicker on Thursday the 3rd of September with a 3 ft NW swell and a clean offshore SSW wind in the morning (energy at 82), but the period is a short 6 seconds, so it'll be a bit weak and crumbly. Not a standout by any stretch.

The water temp is sitting around 60° which is pretty average for this time of year, nothing unusual to report there. Tauranga Bay is a fairly exposed spot and usually consistent, but this forecast period is a write-off. For a beginner-friendly spot like this, with the swell barely breaking three feet, you'd struggle to even catch a foam ball. There's nothing here that would excite a surfer, and honestly, with the stronger cross-shore winds on offer, it looks more like a kite-surfing setup than a paddle-surfing one on most of these days.

So, to sum it up: don't get your hopes up. There are no standouts. The best of a bad bunch is the morning of the 30th of August, but that's saying very little. Keep the board in the car and check back next week.

Rusty.

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