Blacks Beach Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, this is Rusty, and I’m looking at the charts for Blacks Beach (Big Island).

It’s a bit of a slow burner, to be honest. We’ve got a consistent run of small, long-period groundswell pushing in from the SSW, but the conditions are fighting it for most of the first week. The trades are blowing cross-onshore or onshore pretty much every day, so the surface is going to be messy. The combined swell energy is weak to moderate (mostly in the 200-400 range), and with that long 16-18 second period, the sets will be smooth but spread out. The water temperature doesn’t look out of the ordinary for this time of year.

Monday the 24th and Tuesday the 25th are both write-offs with poor surf and marginal tide problems. The swell stays around 2 ft to 3 ft, and those cross-onshore winds are just putting a lid on it.

The first hint of something better shows up on Friday the 28th. The morning is still marginal, but by the afternoon, the wind switches to a light onshore from the west, and the swell bumps up to 3 ft from the SSW with a long 19-second period. That combined energy jumps to 507 – moderate but with more push. Still not clean enough to get excited about though.

Saturday the 29th is where we start to see the best of this run. The morning has 3 ft of SSW groundswell with a 16-second period, and the wind is light and onshore from the west. The afternoon gets even better with 4 ft waves and the combined energy creeping up to 810. It’s still marginal due to that cross-onshore breeze, but for Blacks Beach, which is an exposed reef setup, that long-period swell will wrap in nicely. This is probably the pick of the first week if you’re desperate for a paddle.

The following week, from September 1st, we get a bit of a lull before a more promising pattern shows up around Thursday the 3rd and Friday the 4th. Swell heights climb to 4 ft from the SSW, with periods of 16-17 seconds and combined energy hitting three digits around 860-877. Winds remain light onshore from the west to west-northwest, so it’s going to be a little bumpy but definitely surfable. The stand-out moment might be Saturday the 5th, where we see 4 ft of SSW swell with a 16-second period and light cross-onshore breezes. The energy is strong (874), but the wind is just a whisper.

Just be aware that by Tuesday the 8th, the forecast shows a jump to 8 ft. That’s getting into expert-only territory for Blacks Beach, especially with that short 8-second period. It’s going to be a lot of lumpy, close-out energy, and the cross-onshore breeze will make it ugly. That might be more of a kite-surfing setup than a clean wave for paddling.

Overall, the best sessions look like Saturday the 29th of August and Saturday the 5th of September, both mornings for the cleanest conditions. Keep an eye on the wind shifts.

Rusty.

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