Folly Beach Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Right now, the ocean’s flat as a pancake out here, and honestly, it’s looking pretty bleak for the next week and a half. We’re talking tiny, wind-chopped slop with almost no push behind it. The swell energy is weak, sitting in the low-to-mid 50s (52) at best on Wednesday morning, and it just fades from there. You’d be fighting an onshore breeze for nothing.

That run of nothing stretches from now through the 27th. Days of ankle-biters, with the odd pulse of knee-high mush. The winds are mostly cross or cross-on, keeping things bumpy. It’s the kind of stretch where you check the cam and immediately think, “nah, not worth the drive.”

Then, on Monday the 28th, things finally wake up a touch. The morning brings a bit more size, pushing to around 4.3ft, with moderate energy (251). Still, the wind is on it, so it’s not going to be pretty—more of a messy, lumpy option than a clean one. The period is only 8-9 seconds, so it’s short-period windswell, not the good stuff.

The real standout window is the 29th into the 30th. Tuesday afternoon gets a funky bump, with swell jumping to 6.6ft and energy spiking hard (911), but that’s a bit of a junky, powerful swell with an onshore flow. Not for the faint-hearted. Then Wednesday morning is your best bet overall. The swell drops back to a more manageable 2.6ft but the period jumps to 13 seconds (377), and we get a cross-offshore breeze. That combination—cleaner water, long-period groundswell—will actually shape up nicely at breaks that can handle that kind of swell. That’s your standout, but it’s a one-morning deal before the wind swings onshore again.

For context, the water temp is pretty much average for this time of year, nothing crazy there.

So, if you’re keen, pencil in Wednesday the 30th. You’ll want a spot that handles a longer period, because a 13-second swell at a beach break like this can run a bit straight. It’s not a classic, but it’s the best we’ve got on the board.

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