Oswald State Park/Short Sands Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let's talk about what's on the cards for Oswald State Park and Short Sands. It's a tough stretch ahead, I gotta be straight with you. We're looking at a pretty bare run for most of the next two weeks, so patience is gonna be the name of the game.

The wave energy is weak for the entire outlook, barely scraping into the moderate range at times with readings around (597) at the very start, but it's just not coming together. The water temp is sitting at 57°F, which is about average for this time of year, nothing unusual there.

The first real glimmer of anything surfable doesn't show up until Wednesday, July 8th in the morning. We're talking tiny, with just 2 ft of swell from the southwest. The saving grace? That's an 18-second period groundswell, which is a proper long-period pulse. It'll have some shape, but it's cross-onshore with a light breeze, so it's gonna be bumpy. It's a marginal call at best. There's another tiny window on Friday, July 10th in the morning, again with a 2 ft SW swell at 16 seconds. The wind finally goes light offshore from the west on that one, which would make it glassy and clean. But honestly, with that little height, you're not catching much. That's the best of a bad bunch, and I wouldn't call it a standout. The consistency is "fairly consistent" here but there's just no size or decent wind to work with. After Friday, it's dry for days until we get to the Monday, July 20th. We see a bit of a lift with 5 ft of NW swell, with period climbing to 9 seconds. The wind is light from the west in the morning, going light and cross-onshore from the WSW in the afternoon. This is the closest thing to a highlight in the whole window. It's still marginal due to the short period and messy wind direction, but 5 ft is the biggest we've seen, and with light wind, it might offer a few half-decent waves if you're not picky. For beginners, that 5 ft on a beach break might be a bit much with the short period making for dumpy waves. For the experts, it's just on the edge of being interesting. This break is exposed to swell and the optimum direction is southwest, so this northwest swell isn't ideal.

To be honest, looking at the strong cross and cross-onshore winds and the short-period swell, this setup at a beach break like Short Sands looks far more appealing for the kite crew than for paddle surfing. You gotta call it how you see it.

Overall, the pick of the entire 16 days is a toss-up between the glassy morning of Friday, July 10th if you want a clean, tiny wave, or the bigger but choppier Monday, July 20th. Neither is a standout, but that's the reality.

Rusty, signing off.

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