Waimanalo Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Right, strap in, ‘cause it’s looking like a bit of a flat, frustrating stretch ahead for us here at Waimanalo. I’ve got the whole 16-day picture in front of me, and honestly, for the first week or so, it’s a whole lot of nothing. You’re gonna want to find something else to do with your mornings.

We start off on Saturday the 15th with a real mess. There’s a solid bump of swell, around 12 to 13ft, but it’s coming in with a howling onshore wind, near gale force, and the energy is all over the place. It’s not surfable, it’s just chaos. The water’s still warm, no real anomaly there, pretty average for this time of year, but you won’t wanna be in it.

Sunday the 16th is a bit of a cruel tease. The swell drops to a still-too-big 10ft, and the wind swings offshore-ish but it’s a cross-shore. The report says the wind and tide are favorable, but it’s just too much water moving for this break. It’s gonna be a closeout mess, only for the truly desperate or the suicidal. The wave energy is still strong, sitting at 1429, but it’s not working for us.

Then the bottom falls out. From Monday the 17th all the way through to Friday the 22nd, it’s just poor. Swell drops off to 6ft and below, with short, weak periods of 6-8 seconds. The wind is mostly on or cross-onshore, leaving everything chopped and lumpy. There’s a lot of days with zero recommendations, and the energy readings just sink into the weak zone, like 123, 107, 113... It’s a proper flat spell. You’d be better off checking the kite forecast, because with this wind and messy surf, that’s about all it’s good for.

The weekend of the 23rd and 24th shows a tiny pulse of life, with waves back to 5ft and 5ft, but the period is still short and the wind hasn’t sorted itself out. It’s still a “poor surf conditions” call, just a bit of a bigger version of poor.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Around the 27th and 28th of August, we start to see a change in the longer range. The swell period jumps way up to 17-18 seconds, which signals a proper groundswell. The energy numbers are getting into the strong zone, like 1041 and 1439. But, and it’s a big but, the wave height is still in the 3-5ft range, and that long period stuff at a beach break like Waimanalo can tend to just surge straight through, not offering much shape. Plus, the wind is still on it, so quality is going to be an issue.

The one true standout in this entire window is looking like Sunday the 30th of August. We’ve got a 8ft ENE swell with a 14-second period, and the energy is cranked way up, hitting 2989. That is some serious juice. This is big for Waimanalo, and with that kind of size, it’s expert territory only. The wind is still onshore, which is a shame, but the raw power is there. It’s a long way out, so I wouldn’t book the time off work just yet, but it’s the first thing all week that’s got my heart rate up. A cleaner day with that kind of energy could be something special. But as it stands, for the next sixteen days, that’s your only real glimmer. It’s going to be a test of patience, that’s for sure.

Rusty.

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