Broadway Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, let’s get straight into it. I’ve been staring at the charts for the Broadway stretch for the next couple of weeks, and I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you – it’s a tough stretch. There are no real recommendations in the finder data for the entire 16-day window, so we’re looking at a blank run. That’s not entirely unusual for this area, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.

The first thing you need to know is the water’s running about 77° out there, which is a good 6° warmer than the long-term average for this time of year. That’s a big deal – that’s a seriously warm batch of water, noticeably more than what you’d expect. You might not need that extra thick wetsuit, but you’ll definitely need the energy for all the paddling you’ll be doing for nothing.

For the first few days, it's tiny. The swell is hanging around that 0.7ft to 2ft mark, with periods mostly under 10 seconds. It’s short-period windswell, not any proper groundswell. The best of a bad bunch over the first week is probably the morning of Sunday the 6th with a 1ft ENE swell and clean conditions under a NE cross-offshore, but honestly, you’ll be scratching for anything that stands up. The gap here is substantial – we’re looking at nearly two weeks of no real recommendations, so if you can’t find something else to do, you’re in for some frustration.

We do see a bit of a bump around the 9th and 10th, where the swell gets up to 4ft on Wednesday afternoon, but it’s coming from the SSW with an onshore wind at 30 km/h. That’s going to chop it right up. Not worth your time. That combined energy reading hits 58 on Wednesday afternoon, which is still weak, and it’s messy.

The real issue is the period. We’re seeing mostly 5 to 10 second windswell the whole way through. There’s a hint of a longer period swell showing up on the 17th with a 13-second period, but it’s only 0.3ft. That’s not a wave, that’s a ripple. And it’s being blown flat by a strong 35-40 km/h cross-shore wind. That’s a complete write-off.

Even the last day we have data for, the 20th, shows a combined energy of 128, which is on the higher side, but it’s still only a 3ft ENE swell with a 6-second period and a 30 km/h onshore wind. Don't get excited. That’s junky, bumpy, small stuff.

For a beach/jetty setup like Broadway, this long-period stuff—if it ever showed up—would be better, but we don’t have that here. We have weak, short-period chop. That string of days from the 12th through the 16th with all that onshore wind from the south and southeast is just going to be a mess. On the morning of the 16th, there’s a moment of glass, but there’s nothing behind it. Nothing surfable.

If you’re a kiter, this might be a different story. That stretch from the 17th to the 18th with 35-40 km/h cross-shore winds and a lumpy, wind-blown ocean is a lot more interesting for you than it is for us. For paddle surfing, it’s a hard pass.

So, keep the board in the car for a while. Check back in a few days, forecasts can change, and it often doesn’t stay this poor for this long. But for the next two weeks, my honest advice is to find a river or fix something around the house, because Broadway isn’t giving us a thing.

Rusty.

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