Mavericks Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, folks, Rusty here. Let's take a good, hard look at what's cookin' for Mavericks over the next couple of weeks. I gotta be straight with you, it's a rough stretch for most of it. The water is sitting at 62.1°F, which is a good 3.6°F warmer than usual for this time of year, so it's a lot warmer than you'd expect, but the surf is the real story here.

We're looking at a long, bleak period from Thursday, August 20th, through to the end of the month. The first week is basically a write-off. Swell energy is weak to moderate at best, with readings like 268 (weak) and 285 (weak) on that Thursday, and it doesn't get much better. The combination of small, short-period swell and cross-onshore winds means we'll be dealing with choppy, bumpy conditions. Even the mornings that look promising with light winds are mostly met with marginal surf or poor-quality waves. The swell direction is mostly SSW or SW, which isn't the ideal WNW for this exposed reef, and the size rarely gets above 2.0 ft. It's a tough slog.

That dry spell holds through the first week of September, too. We're seeing a lot of WNW swell finally showing up, but the problem is the period. It's mostly 8 seconds or less, so it's weak, short-period wind swell, not the groundswell we need. The combined energy starts to climb, hitting 664 on the morning of August 27th (moderate), but it's still paired with onshore winds and that poor-quality short-period energy. The real takeaway is that there's not a single standout session in the entire first 16 days.

Now, if you're an expert paddler with nerves of steel, there's a glimmer of hope way out in the forecast. The morning of Friday, September 4th, shows a much bigger pulse of swell. We're looking at a 6.9 ft WNW swell, with a period of 9 seconds, and the combined energy jumps to 1327 (strong). The wind is light and cross-onshore at 6 mph from the SW, which is close to clean. It's still a short-period swell, and at 6.9 ft, it's getting into the "experts only" zone at this spot. The afternoon looks even better in terms of wind, going light and onshore from the W, with the same 6.9 ft WNW swell at 1348 (strong). This is the only time in the whole 16-day window where the direction matches the optimum WNW and the size is real. But don't kid yourself, the quality is still only rated as marginal. It's a promising, but very uncertain, hope for the second week. For now, the rest of the lineup is a ghost town.

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