La Jolla Cove Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright surfers, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you: this 16-day outlook for La Jolla Cove is a pretty quiet affair. For the next week and a half, we’ve got a whole lot of nothing special, with most days looking like a complete write-off. It’s a stubborn pattern of small, weak, or badly directed swell with mostly onshore or cross-onshore winds messing things up. There’s a big gap of several days with no real surf to speak of, so don't get your hopes up.

The only window that even slightly opens up is on Wednesday morning, August 26th. That’s your best bet of the whole run. We’ve got a clean 3 ft of SW groundswell with a very long period of 16 seconds rolling in. The wind is a light cross-offshore from the SSW at 9 mph, so the face should be clean. The combined energy is moderate (333), and for such a protected reef and point setup, that long period will actually help shape things up nicely here. This spot is consistent and a beginner-friendly wave, but for this day, it’s genuinely the only option on the table. Watch for crowds, as it’s a popular spot. The water temp is about average for this time of year, so a spring suit will be fine.

After that early morning window, the afternoon on the 26th drops off to 2 ft, and from Thursday, August 27th onward it’s a desert. We get a mix of weak WNW windswell and small SW pulses, but the wind turns onshore or cross-on, and the combined energy values stay low (often under 200, sometimes as low as 51). The swell period drops to 7-8 seconds, making for weak, choppy lines. By the time we get to early September, the data shows nothing but “poor surf conditions” all the way through to September 9th.

So, to be blunt: if you’re free on Wednesday morning, August 26th, hit La Jolla Cove for some clean, small, long-period groundswell. For the other 15 days, find something else to do. The setup looks more interesting for a paddle than a surf session.

Rusty.

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