Three Peaks Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, Rusty here, talkin’ in feet and miles now.

First off, I’ve gotta be straight with you – the next couple of weeks are looking pretty grim for a proper paddle. We’re looking at poor surf conditions for the vast majority of the 16-day window. There’s a long gap of nothing worth writing home about, with the first real bit of hope showing up on the morning of August 12, and even that’s just a promise, not a guarantee.

The spot we’re talking about is Three Peaks. It’s a beginner-friendly, fairly consistent break that’s exposed to the swell, but it’s been getting hammered by onshore and cross-onshore winds for days. That’s why we’ve got a long stretch of choppy, weak, messy waves. The swell energy is just anemic for most of this period, with values like 35 (Tuesday morning, July 28) or 21 (Tuesday afternoon), all the way down to single digits. Water temperature is about average for this time of year, so nothing wild there.

The pattern starts on July 28 with a tiny 3 ft swell from the WSW, but with a puny 6-second period and onshore wind, it’s just a mess. This continues right through to the end of July and into the first week of August. Even on the morning of August 2, when we get glassy conditions with a light ENE breeze, the swell is only 1 ft and from the WSW, giving us a combined energy of just 29 – not enough to get excited about. The same goes for Monday, August 3, and Tuesday, August 4, where we get clean conditions but with that same tiny 1 ft swell. It’s clean, but there’s no power.

The only real standout – and I’m using that word cautiously – is the morning of August 12. That Wednesday morning, we’re looking at a 5 ft swell from the WSW, with a period of 8 seconds, and a combined energy of 497. That’s a moderate wave energy, and it’s the biggest swell we see in the whole forecast. The wind is cross-offshore from the NNW, which should keep things clean. The crowd is listed as “sometimes,” so you might get a few others out, but it won’t be a circus. The swell direction is from the WSW, which isn’t the optimum W direction listed in the guidance, but it’s close enough to give it a crack. The period is a middling 8 seconds, so it’s not a long-period groundswell, but it’s not junk either. This is the only session that earns a score of 2 out of 10, which tells you how flat the rest of the window is.

So, if you’re hanging out for a surf, your best bet is to pencil in the morning of August 12. Anything before that is a waste of gas. The 10 days leading up to it are a write-off. After the 12th, the forecast ends, but given the pattern, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Stay patient, and don’t snap your stick on the shore.

Rusty.

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