Big Ben Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, surfers, it’s Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you: the next week and a half looking out of Big Ben is a test of patience, not a celebration of waves. We’ve got a long, flat spell on our hands for the first few days, so don’t even bother waxing up until we get past that. We're looking at a real desert out there from now until about the 22nd, with nothing but dribbles and poor surf conditions. Light winds and small swell won’t be saving us either; this is a true waiting game.

Then, around the 23rd, we finally see a pulse of energy, but it’s not pretty. A bit of clean surf is forecast for the morning, but the swell is still small and the winds are iffy. The real story is a big, powerful long-period south-southeast groundswell that shows up on the 26th. The energy readings are massive, hitting numbers like 4328 and climbing to almost 5000, but for a beach/jetty setup like Big Ben, this is a case of too much of a good thing. The swell size is predicted to be around 10ft, which makes it strictly expert-only, and the cross-onshore winds are going to make it messy. Honestly, this setup looks more interesting for the kite surfers than for us paddle surfers.

That massive swell hangs around for a couple of days, but by the 28th and 29th, the wind goes nuts, hitting 37 mph at times, and turning the whole ocean into a washing machine. You don’t want any part of that. We then get a brief drop in size, but conditions are still marginal and cross-shore, so nothing there either.

The standout window, and the only real highlight in this whole 16-day forecast, is the morning of the 31st of August. That’s the one to circle. We’ll see dropping swell, around 6ft from the south-southeast, but the kicker is the wind. It's forecast to go glassy. Absolutely dead calm. For a beach break, that is a golden ticket, and the wave comment says it’s excellent for experienced surfers. With that size, it’s not a beginner wave, but for the rest of you, that’s your window. The energy is still moderate, around 1060, but the clean conditions will make it feel ten times better than anything else in this period.

After that, on the 1st of September, we see another bump in size, but it gets too big again for Big Ben, so we’ll leave that one alone.

So, keep your head up. The beginning is bleak, but that glassy morning on the 31st is the payoff for your patience. It’s a long way out, so take the call with a grain of salt, but it’s the one worth setting an alarm for.

Rusty, out.

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