Whangamata Bar Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here with a look at what’s on the cards for the next couple of weeks.

Let’s be straight up – it’s a tough stretch ahead for Whangamata Bar. We’re looking at a long, quiet run with hardly anything that gets the heart pumping. The water temp is sitting around 15°, which is pretty much bang on average for this time of year, so nothing wild there.

The first real sniff of anything comes on Thursday the 14th for the morning session, but don’t get too excited. We’ve got a 6ft NE windswell rolling in with a short 7 second period, and the wind is coming at us from the SSE – that’s a light cross-shore, but it’s still not ideal. The energy’s moderate at best (556). Honestly, it’s marginal. It’s a beach and bar setup here, so with that short-period swell, it’s going to be lumpy and hard to love. Might be more interesting for a kite surfer than a paddle surfer. The troughs between sets will be manageable for getting out, but the wave quality is gonna be pretty average.

After that, things don’t improve. Saturday the 16th afternoon has a little glassy moment with 3ft E swell and no wind at all, but it’s weak (137) and the waves are ordinary. Then Sunday morning the 17th sees a clean 3ft ENE swell with a light cross-offshore SSW breeze, which is about as good as it gets in this run – but again, it’s just surfable, not special. Crowds are sometimes a thing here, but honestly, with surf this average, I wouldn’t expect a crowd.

Then we hit a real dead zone. From Monday the 18th onwards, the swell drops away to tiny, weak stuff – 2ft, 1.0ft, even 0.7ft. The energy readings fall into the double digits (37, 29, 32… all weak). There’s a few glassy and clean mornings with offshore winds, especially around Wednesday the 20th and Friday the 22nd, but the waves are just too small to bother paddling out for. A couple of clean 0.3ft days with long-period groundswell showing up around the 23rd to the 26th, but that’s straight up flat.

We’ve got a solid 10-day gap of nothing worthwhile from mid-August onwards. This kind of blank run is pretty normal for this area when the swell window goes quiet. Forecasts can change, but right now, it’s a waiting game.

Best bet? If you’re desperate, the Sunday morning (16th August) with that clean 3ft swell is the only thing that even comes close to a surf. But honestly, keep your expectations on the floor.

Rusty, signing out.

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