Masonboro Inlet Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you – this outlook for the next couple of weeks is a tough one to write. The honest truth is, according to everything I’m seeing, there are simply no good surf options in this 16-day window for Masonboro Inlet. We’ve got a blank run on our hands, and that’s the reality of the situation right now.

The pattern starts flat and stays that way for a long stretch. From Tuesday afternoon, July 14th, right through the end of the month, things are looking grim. The swell is either tiny, short-period junk, or completely absent. The first few days show a weak, short-period E/SE swell, but it’s a cross-onshore mess with wind speeds hitting 16 mph from the east, making it choppy and unrideable. That combined wave energy is weak, sitting at 74 on the 14th, and it only gets smaller from there.

Even the water temp is a bit of a non-story here – it’s sitting at a normal 82°F for mid-July, so no help there.

We do get a few pops of more energy later in the run, like the afternoon of Saturday, July 18th, where the swell bumps up to 4 ft from the south with the combined energy reading 107, but that’s a fresh cross-shore breeze at 19 mph creating lumpy, messy conditions. It’s not surfable, plain and simple. The same story repeats on the 24th and 25th with a bit more energy (110 and 113), but the wind is always wrong, either cross or cross-onshore, and the period is short – mostly 5 to 6 seconds – so there’s no real push.

The only day that *might* look semi-clean is Wednesday morning, July 22nd, with a light cross-offshore breeze from the NNE, but the swell is a pathetic 0.7 ft from the ESE. There’s nothing to ride.

Sometimes in areas like this, a blank run is just what happens. It’s normal for the season. The breaks are inconsistent, and the forecasts can change, so we keep an eye on the horizon, but for now, I’d say leave the board in the car and go do something else.

Rusty.

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