Back Strands Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s have a look at what’s on the table for the coming days.

Right out of the gate, I gotta be straight with ya—there’s a long dry spell ahead. We’re looking at a stretch of over a week with hardly anything to get excited about. Conditions are rough, the swell is tiny or junk, and the wind is just making a mess of things. You’d be better off cleaning the wax off your board than paddling out for most of this.

The first sniff of anything worthwhile doesn’t show up until Monday the 24th of August. That’s when we get a bit of life into the water at Back Strands. We’ve got a west-northwest groundswell pushing in around 4ft with an 11-second period—nice and clean thanks to a light east-southeast cross-offshore breeze. There’s moderate energy in the water (308), and it’s actually surfable. The morning window on Monday is your best bet with those clean conditions. The afternoon holds smaller 3ft waves with a gentle offshore, but the clouds roll in and it’s just ordinary.

Tuesday the 25th is a letdown. Swell drops right off to 2ft, and even though the wind stays clean out of the east-southeast, there’s barely any energy (67). You might get a few knee-high runners but nothing to write home about.

After that, we slip back into a lull. From Wednesday the 26th right through to the end of the month and into early September, it’s poor. Tiny swells, onshore winds, and lumpy, choppy surf. The energy readings are mostly in the double digits and low triple digits, which tells you it’s weak. The water temp is sitting around 62°F—about a touch warmer than normal for the time of year, so the water feels a bit friendly even if the surf doesn’t.

Now, around the 3rd and 4th of September, we see a bump in size. Thursday the 3rd has a 3ft to 4ft west-southwest swell, but the wind is on it and the conditions are ordinary (energy 158-234). Friday the 4th brings a bigger, longer-period groundswell from the west, hitting 7ft with a 12-second period and a massive energy spike (1357). But—and it’s a big but—the wind is howling at 22 mph from the west, fresh cross-onshore. That’s a lumpy, blown-out mess. That size and power with that wind? It might be interesting for the kite surfers, but for a paddle surfer, it’s not worth the hassle. The period is over 11 seconds, so it’s a solid groundswell that would normally love a reef or point, but the wind just kills it here.

So, the standout? Honestly, Monday the 24th of August is your only real shot. Get it early. Everything else is blown out or too small.

Rusty

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