Broadway Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. I’ll be straight with you: the next month or so at Broadway is shaping up as one of those long, frustrating runs where the ocean just won’t cooperate. For a spot that’s fairly exposed, it’s just not delivering.

We’re looking at a long, dry spell of poor conditions right through until at least Friday the 24th of July. The swell coming in is tiny—mostly around 1ft to 3ft—and what little energy there is gets torn apart by onshore or cross-onshore winds. The wave period is often short, under 8 seconds, which means lumpy, weak, unshapely little lines. Combined swell energy stays low for weeks, never breaking 100 (21, 35, 24, 18, 11, 7, 9, 8, 16, 20, 22, 61, 51, 46, 58, 39, 53, 43, 63, 64). It’s all just poor surf conditions, day after day.

The early signs, like Tuesday morning the 14th, have a tiny 1ft from the SE with a light cross-on breeze. Clean? No. Surfable? Barely. Wednesday the 15th looks similar—small, cross-shore, no push. Friday the 17th offers a brief moment with a light offshore NNE wind at 3 mph and clean conditions, but the swell is only 1ft from the SSE. It’s a glassy ripple, not a wave. The water temp is sitting at a pretty normal 74° for this time of year, so at least the sting’s not in the water.

Honestly, even when the combined energy jumps to 108 and then 129 on Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th, the quality doesn’t follow. On the 24th, we get a moderate cross-onshore chop with a short 7-second period. On the 25th, the swell gets a little more interesting—2ft from the ESE, period up to 11 seconds, combined energy 126—and for the first time we see “surfable waves but very ordinary conditions.” That is the best of the whole run. The NNE wind at 9 mph is cross-offshore, keeping things clean. But it’s still just ankle-high and inconsistent.

After that it fades again. The rest of the month into the start of August brings only more tiny, choppy, cross-on slop. There’s a brief flash on Monday the 27th morning with a 12 mph offshore N wind and clean conditions, but the swell is just 2ft from the SSE. Not enough push to call it a session.

Because this is a beach and jetty setup that’s often exposed, when the swell is poor and the wind is strong and onshore, it’s actually more interesting for kite surfing than paddle surfing. That’s the look of it for most of this outlook.

So what’s the standout? There isn’t one. The single best moment is Saturday the 25th of July morning—clean, with that longer-period 2ft ESE swell, but it’s only surfable in the most forgiving sense. If you’re desperate and have a longboard, that’s your window. Otherwise, save the wax.

Rusty.

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