North Beach Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Gotta be straight with you – this 16-day window for North Beach is a rough one. The wind is just cruel, almost constantly hammering us from the northeast, which is cross-onshore here. The water is sitting at a pretty average 71°F, so nothing weird going on with the temperature for this time of year.

The week starts off flat, weak, and choppy. Friday the 14th is a write-off with tiny, weak 1ft to 1ft junk. Saturday the 15th shows a pulse of energy with a 6ft swell from the east-northeast, but the combined energy (1203) is strong, yet it's completely ruined by a moderate cross-onshore breeze making it lumpy and messy. Not worth paddling out for.

We have a long, quiet gap through the middle of the week. There’s a brief, cleaner window on Thursday afternoon the 20th with a clean, cross-offshore wind, but the swell is only 2ft from the south-southwest with a very long 14-second period. It’s just too small to get excited about. It’s more of a longboard glide than a proper surf.

The real talking point, and honestly the only standout in this whole outlook, is the last few days of the run. Sunday the 23rd sees a serious pulse of south swell arrive. It builds to 8ft by the afternoon with an incredibly long 15-second period. The combined energy is massive (2948). This is powerful, heavy groundswell. That long period at a beach break like North Beach can make it wall up and close out, but if the tide lines up, it could be a freight train. The wind is a moderate cross-shore, so it'll be bumpy but rideable. This is for experienced surfers only – over 8ft is expert territory. It holds that strength into Monday the 24th with a 7ft, 14-second south swell and a light onshore breeze making for cleaner conditions than the day before.

Then it fades quickly, and we're back to lumpy, cross-onshore slop by Tuesday the 25th. There is another late pulse on Saturday the 29th – a 5ft south-southwest swell with a very long 17-second period and a cross-shore wind. The energy is solid (1331), but like the previous big swells, that long period at a beach break might be tricky.

If you're an expert and can handle the size and the period, Sunday the 23rd through Monday the 24th is your only chance at something with real power. For everyone else, it's a blank run. When the swell is big but the wind is junk and the break is just a beach, it honestly looks more interesting for the kite surfers than the paddle crew.

Rusty.

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