West Wittering Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s have a proper look at what West Wittering’s got lined up for us. I gotta be straight with you – it’s a grim picture for the next two weeks. We’re looking at a real drought of surfable waves. The whole 16-day window is pretty much a write-off, with the vast majority of days offering flat or near-flat conditions, and when there is a bump, the wind and quality just aren’t playing ball. There’s a big gap of nothing, with the first proper chance of a paddle not even showing up until the very end.

Kicking off from August 16th, it’s flat. Totally flat. A zero in the energy department. Water temp is sitting at 71°F, which is a whopping 9°F warmer than usual – that’s very unusual, a proper Indian summer feel to the sea. But you won’t be surfing it. This stretch of nothing continues through the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th. We get tiny little dribbles of swell, never breaking 3ft, from the SW, but the wind is constantly onshore or cross-onshore, messy, choppy – a kite surfer’s dream, not a paddle surfer’s. The swell period is short, around 3 to 4 seconds, so no power at all.

The 21st gives us a clean morning with a light offshore from the N, but the swell is just 1.0ft from the SW. You could maybe catch a knee-high ripple on a longboard, but it’s a low tide special, and there’s very little energy. Then it’s back to nothing for the 22nd and 23rd. The 24th and 25th offer a tiny pulse of 0.3ft to 2ft from the W and SW, with periods still short. It’s clean on some mornings, but we’re talking ankle-biters. Not worth dragging the wettie out for.

The only glimmer, and I mean a very faint glimmer, is on August 29th. The afternoon sees a sudden jump in energy. The combined energy is high, meaning there’s some serious power in the water. Swell height jumps to 7ft from the SSW, with a period of 6 seconds. Now, this is a raw, short-period wind swell, and the wind is howling onshore at 25 mph from the WSW. For a sheltered beach/groyne setup like West Wittering, that is going to be a messy, blown-out, choppy mess. It’s big enough to be dangerous for beginners, and only for experts who like a challenge in poor conditions. The quality is still poor and it’s a short-period, onshore mess. Honestly, I can’t call any day a standout here. If you’re desperate, that 29th might give you a wild, ugly, powerful session, but you’d have to want it bad.

To sum it up: a total flat spell for the first week and a half, followed by a one-day spike of powerful but terrible-quality surf at the very end of the window. The wind is our enemy for most of it. Forecasts can change, so don’t write the whole summer off just yet.

Rusty.

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