Jennette's Pier Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Righto, grab a coffee and have a listen. Rusty here, and I’ve been staring at the charts for the Outer Banks. Honestly, the next couple of weeks look pretty grim for a proper paddle session at Jennette’s Pier. We are in for a long, dry spell.

The water’s sitting at a balmy 82°F, which is a touch warmer than normal for this time of year, so at least it’ll be comfortable sitting on the beach watching the flatness.

We start off on Thursday, 27 August, with a tiny 2ft easterly swell, but it’s just not happening. With thunderstorms threatening and the wind all over the place, the surf is poor. That theme carries on right through the first week. We see a few mornings with clean conditions, like Saturday 29 August morning when a light offshore tries to tidy up that measly 2ft from the ESE, but every session score is junk. Honestly, there’s just no wave energy to work with – the combined energy reading is barely ticking over, mostly in the 20s and 30s.

We finally get a little spike on the morning of the 2nd of September. A 2ft groundswell from the ESE with a promising 11-second period shows up, giving us a combined energy of 91. It’s still pretty weak, but with a clean offshore breeze there might be a few fun, fat little rollers for a log. But by the afternoon, the wind swings onshore and crosses it up again, so you’d have to get it first thing.

Then the system goes properly pear-shaped. From the 6th of September onwards, a strong onshore blow kicks up a messy, lumpy sea state. The swell height actually bumps up to 6ft by the afternoon of the 6th, but it's pure wind-slop with a period of only 6 seconds. The energy jumps to 231 – moderate energy – but with a howling 22 mph onshore wind, it’s a complete washout. That kind of short-period, onshore mess is not for a paddle board; it looks far more interesting for the kite-surfing crew. That raw power continues into the 7th and 8th, but it stays ugly and cross-onshore.

After that, the energy just drops off a cliff. For the final few days we are left with tiny, weak energy readings and just flat, poor conditions. There is simply nothing to recommend in this entire 16-day run. It's one of those blank spells that can happen at this time of year, but hopefully the forecasts will change.

Rusty.

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