120th Street Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you – the next 16 days are looking pretty flat and grim for 120th Street. We’ve got a long stretch of small, weak, and messy conditions. Honestly, if you’re dying to get wet, you’ll be scratching for anything ridable.

The first chance for a surf comes on Tuesday the 1st of September, but it’s nothing to write home about. We’re looking at tiny 0.4ft swell from the SE with a short, weak period of 7 seconds. The combined energy is barely a whisper at (18), and while the morning has a clean look with a light cross-offshore breeze, the waves themselves are just poor. Afternoon gets a bit more breeze, but still the same weak dribble.

Wednesday the 2nd sees a bump in swell direction from the ESE, but it’s a cross-on mess. The swell height picks up a touch to 2ft, and the period gets longer to 11 seconds, which is groundswell, but the wind is straight out of the NE making it choppy and ugly. Combined energy hits (90) – that’s the most we’ll see for a while, but the quality is shot. Not worth paddling out.

There’s a brief flicker on Thursday the 3rd of September. Early morning turns glassy, with a 1ft SE swell and a 9-second period. The combined energy is a meager (53). The guidance calls it “surfable but very ordinary.” This is your absolute best bet in the whole 16-day window, and it’s only a 1/10. If you’re desperate, paddle out at dawn for a few knee-high sliders. Clean conditions, but there’s just no power. Crowds are possible here.

From there, it’s a grim slog. Friday the 4th through to the end of the period on Wednesday the 16th is a long run of poor surf. Swell heights hover between 0.6ft and 3ft, with periods mostly under 8 seconds (short-period wind slop), and the wind is either cross, cross-on, or onshore. The combined energy is a constant low-grade hum, mostly in the teens to fifties. The only other day that even remotely cleans up is Sunday the 13th with another glassy morning, but again it’s a 1ft micro-swell.

Look, 120th Street is a beach and jetty setup, exposed to the SE, and the optimum swell direction is SE, so it’s on the right track, but the size and wind just aren’t cooperating. We’ve got a 13-day gap from the 3rd of September all the way to the end with zero recommendations. This is a dry spell. For this area, it’s not uncommon to get a blank run like this, so don’t hang your boardshorts up just yet – forecasts can change.

Keep the gear waxed and wait for a better window.

Rusty.

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