Number Fours Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, grab a coffee and listen up – Rusty here, giving you the full rundown on Number Fours. This reef out here, getting a SSE exposure, is a tricky beast. It's fairly consistent, but the wind is our enemy for most of this run. The water temp is about what you'd expect for this time of year, so nothing wild there.

We're starting off with a bit of a mess. The first few days from Saturday the 1st to Monday the 3rd of August, we've got a solid 7 ft to 10 ft of short-period swell from the E and ENE, but the wind is howling in from the ENE at 22 to 28 mph. It's a cross-off, so the waves will be clean, but the wind state is a strong to fresh breeze, making it a battle. The energy is strong, hitting 1483 on Saturday morning, but the quality is marginal. Honestly, it's a lot of water moving around, but it's not going to be pretty. This is more for the kitesurfers out there, to be honest.

Things settle down a touch from Tuesday the 4th through to Wednesday the 5th. The swell drops to 4 ft to 5 ft, and the period stretches out a bit to 10-11 seconds, which is an improvement. The wind backs off too, with gentle to light breezes. The energy drops to moderate, around 309-570. Still, the wind is a cross-off, and the conditions are clean. Not a standout, but a step in the right direction.

Then we hit a flat spell. Thursday the 6th sees a tiny 1 ft of SSW swell with a very long 14-second period, but the wind goes glassy from the NNW. It's a beautiful moment, but the swell is too small to do anything with. From Friday the 7th to Wednesday the 13th, the wind is a constant fresh breeze from the ENE, and the surf quality is poor. There's a mix of tiny SSW swells and short-period ENE windswell, but it's all junk. The energy is weak to moderate, and the scores are bottom of the barrel. It's a long, frustrating gap.

The best of the bunch, and really the only thing to get excited about, is the morning of Wednesday the 6th of August. We've got that glassy, NNW wind, and even though the swell is tiny at 1 ft from the SSW with a very long 14-second period, it's the cleanest window we'll see. That long period is a groundswell, best for the reef here, but it'll be small and inconsistent. It's a rare moment of calm, but it's a gamble.

The very end of the run, from Wednesday the 12th to Sunday the 16th, shows a bit more promise on the charts. We start seeing 2 ft to 3 ft of swell from the S and SSW, with periods of 14 to 19 seconds – that's proper groundswell energy. The wave energy is moderate, hitting 733 on the 12th afternoon. The problem is that relentless ENE wind, 19 to 22 mph, pulsing through. It's a cross-off, so the waves will be clean, but the wind will be strong. It's a long-range call, so take it with a grain of salt, but if that wind ever drops, Number Fours could have a few fun ones.

So, for the true standout, it's a toss-up between the glassy calm on the 6th and the promise of those long-period S swells in the second week. The glassy morning is a sure thing for a clean, if tiny, session. The bigger swells later are a potential, but you'll be fighting the wind.

Rusty, signing off.

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