Croatan Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let's have a look at what Croatan has in store for us over the next couple of weeks. Gotta be straight with you, it’s a pretty bleak run. We’re looking at a long stretch of small, weak, and messy conditions.

The window kicks off on Monday the 7th of September, but honestly, the first week is a write-off. We're dealing with tiny ankle-biters, mostly around 1ft to 2ft, with poor, choppy wind the whole time. There's just no energy in the water – the swell energy numbers barely scrape into double digits, staying between 23 and 76 for days. It’s not something you’d paddle out for unless you’re desperate for a float.

We finally get a tiny flicker on Wednesday the 9th in the morning. A 2ft south-easterly bump (7-second period) rolls in, and with a light offshore breeze, it'll be clean. But it’s tiny. The score reflects that it’s "surfable waves but very ordinary conditions". You’d be on a longboard, working for scraps.

Thursday the 10th is more of the same. The morning is a flat 1ft, and the afternoon jumps to 3ft, but it’s from the south with a dreadful 4-second period – that’s just wind chop. It might be clean with the offshore wind, but there's no power behind it (combined energy just 48).

The bad news keeps coming right through to the middle of the second week. This is a proper flat spell. You’re looking at over a week of nothing worth mentioning. There’s a little bump in swell height on Monday the 16th, hitting 4ft from the north-east, but it’s badly chopped up by a moderate cross-shore wind, with a score of zero. No good.

The one thing that catches your eye is way out at the end of the forecast. On the morning of Monday the 21st of September, things just start to tick up, but the real event is Tuesday the 22nd. We’ve got a solid 6ft east-north-easterly swell rolling in with an 8-second period. The combined swell energy jumps to 457, which is a big number and says there’s finally some moderate grunt in the water. But – and it's a big but – the wind is a moderate cross-onshore at 16 mph. That’s going to make it choppy and messy. This swell is also getting up over 5ft, so it’s getting a bit much for the beginners. The raw power is there, but the conditions look more like a fight than a fun session. By that point, you might be looking out at a beach-break setup with that kind of cross-onshore wind and thinking it's more interesting for a kite surfer than a paddle surfer, although the cleanest lines will be tough to find.

So, the long and short of it is, the first week is a total loss. The second week has very little to offer until that final pulse around the 22nd. That Tuesday the 22nd is the only potential standout, but it’s a long way off, a bit on the big side and the wind is against it. It’s promising, but feel free to be skeptical. The rest of the time, you’re better off doing something else.

Stay patient, keep an eye on the charts. This kind of blank run happens here, but it never lasts forever.

Rusty.

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