Horace Caldwell Pier Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, fellow wave hunters, Rusty here. Let's be straight with you – the outlook for Horace Caldwell Pier is a pretty bleak one for the next 16 days. We've got a long, long stretch of “poor surf conditions” staring us right in the face, so if you can leave the board at home and do something else, it might be the smarter play.

Starting from Wednesday the 9th and running all the way through to Monday the 21st of September, it's a write-off. The swell just isn't showing up with any meaningful size or energy, and the wind is making a mess of things more often than not. The water temp is sitting at 87°, which is a touch warmer than normal for this time of year, but that's about the only notable thing.

The first few days have tiny 2ft to 2ft slop from the SE with periods of just 4 seconds – that's pure wind chop. The “combined energy of all swells directed here” is in the low double digits, like 11, 13, 16, which is weak. Add in cross-on and onshore winds at 15 to 25 km/h, and you've got choppy, lumpy, uninviting surf. You can call it "surf" if you're a kite surfer, because that's the only kind of fun to be had out there with that mess. Some clear skies on Saturday the 12th and Sunday the 13th look nice, but the wind is still a problem.

Into the second week, the pattern doesn't change. It stays small and mostly messy. There is one tiny moment of hope on the morning of Friday the 18th of September, a full ten days from now. We get a glassy start with a NNW breeze at just 5 km/h on a 2ft swell from the ESE. It would be clean, but it's barely breaking. The energy is still weak at 27. It's not worth paddling for.

Then we get something a bit different on the morning of Saturday the 19th of September and again on the morning of Monday the 21st of September: clean conditions from NNE and NNE cross-offshore winds with 1ft to 2ft swells. The energy is tiny (down to 9). It's glassy clean, but you'll be scratching for a wave.

The biggest change comes right at the tail end of the forecast: Thursday the 24th of September. The combined energy jumps to a moderate 257, with a 4ft swell from the ESE at a period of 7 seconds. The wind is a 30 km/h N cross-offshore, so it'll be clean. That's the most powerful swell of the whole run, but it's still short period and the rating is poor surf conditions. It might offer a couple of short, punchy rides. The morning of the 23rd of September has a cross-offshore wind and a 4ft swell with energy at 90 – again, clean but still not great.

There are one or two moments where the wind drops and the sky clears, but when the swell is that small and the energy that weak, there's just no real ride to be had. This is a blank run, which is normal when the windows of solid swell just don't line up.

Bottom line: Don't rush for this one. Check back later, forecasts can change. Rusty out.

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