Bay Street Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, this is Rusty comin' at ya. Let’s be straight with you: the next couple of weeks at Bay Street are looking like a real test of patience. We've got a long stretch of small, messy conditions to work through before anything even remotely rideable shows up.

Forget the first several days. From Tuesday the 18th of August right through to about the end of the month, we're stuck with tiny swell, mostly in the 1.0 ft to 2 ft range. The wind is a constant problem too, sitting on it from the SW or SSW most days, which just chops up what little energy there is. The water is a standout for the wrong reasons – it's sitting at 71°, which is *much warmer than normal* for this time of year. It feels like a bathtub, but that doesn't help the waves. The combined energy is weak, barely cracking triple digits (219) on that first Tuesday afternoon, and mostly staying under 200. It's a whole lot of nothing.

We’ve got a gap of nearly a week and a half of no real surf. You're better off finding something else to do.

Things start to look a little more interesting as we head into the final days of August and the very start of September. The swell picks up slightly, with heights hitting 3 ft to 3 ft from the SSW on Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 30th. The combined energy finally shows some life, climbing to a moderate 430 on the Saturday morning. The wind is still a problem though, mostly onshore or cross-onshore.

Now, the one period that gets the blood pumping a little is Tuesday the 1st of September. The swell jumps up to 4 ft to 4 ft from the west, but the period drops right off to a short, weak 6 to 7 seconds. That’s windswell, not groundswell. It’s going to be bumpy and weak. The combined energy is moderate (305-324), but with the wind straight on it, the description is "poor surf conditions." This is a miss.

Even though the swell gets a bit bigger, the quality isn't there. For a beginner spot like Bay Street, anything over 5 ft is getting challenging, but we don't even hit that. The consistent onshore flow just ruins any chance of a clean wave.

Bottom line: there are no true standouts in this forecast. The best you can hope for is a marginal, knee-high wave with questionable tide conditions on the 1st of September. It’s a long, blank run of small, choppy surf. For the area, a blank run like this is fairly normal. Keep an eye on the charts, but don't hold your breath.

Rusty.

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