Whitby Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Right, folks, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you – this is a tough one for the Whitby area. We’re looking at a long, dry spell with hardly any surf to speak of for the first twelve days of the forecast.

The whole stretch from Saturday the 8th of August right through to Tuesday the 19th of August is a write-off. We’re talking tiny, weak swell with next to no energy, and the conditions are just not coming together. The wind is messy, mostly cross-off or cross, and the swell heights are barely a ripple. It’s the kind of period where you might as well keep the board in the car and go for a walk along the cliffs. The combined swell energy is pitiful, often well under 100 (like 18 and 20), which is about as weak as it gets.

There is a tiny flicker of hope on Thursday the 20th of August. The morning sees a bit of a pulse with 5 ft of swell from the north, with a period of 6 seconds. The combined energy jumps to 141 (moderate), and we’ve got a light breeze from the west (cross-off) keeping things clean. The wave comment calls it “surfable waves but very ordinary conditions,” which is about as positive as it gets. It’s not going to be a classic, but it’s the only window in the first two weeks that even gets a score of 1. If you’re desperate, you could paddle out at Whitby (beach/pier) and maybe find a few knee-high sliders. The water is a touch warmer than normal at 62°F, so that’s a small comfort.

The real standout here, if you can call it that, is the morning of Friday the 21st of August. Now, this is a long way out, so treat it as a promising rumour, not a certainty. The forecast is for 8 ft of swell from the north, with a period of 8 seconds. The combined energy is a massive 1338 (strong to very strong wave energy). That’s a lot of water moving around. However, the wind is a moderate cross-shore from the northwest, which will create a cross-chop, and the conditions are described as “marginal.” At 8 ft, this is expert-only territory. It’s going to be big, raw, and bumpy. For a beach/pier setup like Whitby, with that much energy and a cross wind, it might actually be more interesting for the kite surfers than the paddle crew. The afternoon looks onshore and messy, so the morning is your only shot.

After that, the swell drops off rapidly into the last week of August, with more small, weak, and poorly winded days. The Saturday the 22nd and Sunday the 23rd are back to tiny, choppy nothing.

So, to sum it up: the whole 16-day window is largely a bust. There’s one very ordinary, small window on Thursday the 20th, and one big, expert-only, marginal day on Friday the 21st that’s a long shot. It’s a quiet period for Whitby, but the forecasts can change, and it never stays flat forever.

Rusty.

Read more