81st Street Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, grab a coffee and listen up. It's Rusty here.

Looking at the 16-day window, to be brutally honest, it’s a pretty flat and forgettable stretch for 81st Street. The wave energy is almost non-existent for most of it, and you’ll be spending a lot of time just waiting for anything with a pulse. There is a notable gap of several days with absolutely nothing worth paddling out for, especially from the end of the first week right through the start of August. The water temp is sitting at a warm 80°, which is about average for the time of year, but that's about the only positive.

Let’s run through it. On Wednesday the 22nd of July, there’s some weak chest-high swell rolling in from the SSE at 3ft, but with that moderate rain and a fresh 30 km/h SW wind, it’s a mess. Not worth getting wet.

Thursday the 23rd offers a tiny spike of 4ft from the NE in the afternoon, but it’s onshore junk with a short period of only 6 seconds. The energy is still weak and the conditions are poor. Not your day. The rest of that week is mostly tiny and onshore, with the one little glimmer being Saturday morning.

Saturday the 25th... and this is genuinely the standout of the whole outlook. We get a window of glassy conditions at 2ft from the NE. The wind is dead calm (5 km/h from the N), and the break will be clean. It’s small, just waist-high, but it’s the only time it looks presentable. The wave energy is very weak, but for a newbie on a foamie, this is your moment. The break can be inconsistent, but if you get a set, it’ll be clean.

From Sunday the 26th onwards, it’s a long, slow grind. The swell drops to knee-high or below, with constant cross-shore and onshore winds. The energy readings are bottom of the barrel. There are a few moments of clean offshore wind on Monday the 27th morning and Tuesday the 28th afternoon, but the swell is simply not there to make anything of it. It’s a surfable wave but very ordinary. By the time we hit August 1st, it’s properly flat with storm threats.

The last few days of the outlook, around August 5th and 6th, the swell direction swings around to the ENE, but the height is barely 1ft and the energy is next to nothing. There's simply no power.

So, here's the bottom line. If you absolutely need to get wet, your only real call is Saturday the 25th of July for a glassy, clean, but tiny session. For the rest of the 16 days, save your energy and wax. It’s a rough stretch.

Rusty.

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