North Bar Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, this is Rusty.

Alright, look, I’ll be straight with you—this stretch ahead for North Bar is a tough one. We’ve got a 16-day window here, and the honest truth is there’s hardly a wave worth paddling for. The entire forecast period is a write-off for any decent surf. You’re looking at a long, long gap with nothing to get excited about. Most days the swell is tiny, the wind is messy, or both. It’s one of those bleak runs where you’d be better off checking the forecasts for another coast or just waxing your board for a future trip. Forecasts can change though, and this spot is fairly consistent in general, so a blank spell like this isn’t the norm for the area.

Let’s run through it. The first mention of anything even close to surfable is on the morning of Thursday the 3rd of September. A tiny 2 ft swell from the southeast with a 9-second period, giving off weak energy (89). The wind does turn offshore from the SSW, so the surface would be clean, but the wave comment says it all: “surfable waves but very ordinary conditions.” It’s a 1 out of 10 really. The water temp is about average for the time of year at 70 °F. That’s your only sniff in the first week, and it’s barely a sniff.

After that, it’s just grim. Days of onshore winds, flat spells, and cross-shore junk. Sunday the 6th of September afternoon shows a slight pulse—2 ft from the ENE with an 8-second period, but the energy jumps to a moderate 106—still, the conditions are only rated as “surfable but very ordinary.” Not worth the drive.

Heading into the second week, it gets even smaller. The swell drops to 1 ft or 0.7 ft for days on end. The energy numbers are in the teens and single digits—weak, weak, weak. There’s a brief moment on Saturday the 12th of September afternoon with a 2 ft from the south, 7-second period, clean conditions with light cross-offshore wind, but again, it’s ordinary at best. The swell direction is south, not matching the optimum east direction that North Bar wants.

The last chance comes on Thursday the 17th of September with a 1 ft southeast swell that has a very long 13-second period (35 energy). It’s clean in the afternoon with a light offshore from the SW, but that tiny swell height with that long period means it’ll be fat, weak, and breaking straight at a beach setup like this. Not for the experts, not for anyone really.

So that’s it. No standouts. No days to circle on the calendar. The best you can hope for is a clean, tiny, weak wave on the 3rd or 12th, but both are a letdown. Sometimes the ocean just says “not today.”

Stay patient.

Rusty.

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