Reef Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here, looking at what's on the table for the next couple of weeks. Honestly, it's a tough one to call. The pattern is basically flat or messy for the majority of the window. We're looking at a long stretch of poor surf conditions, with a lot of wind and not much in the way of decent swell. There's a real gap from now through most of the next week, with nothing really worth paddling out for.

The first real flicker of life shows up on the morning of Sunday, August 23rd, but it's still a "poor surf conditions" call. The only spot that ever gets a slight nod is the Reef. It's a fairly consistent, exposed reef break that likes a swell from the southwest. The water temp is sitting at 68°F, which is about 1°F cooler than the long-term average, so it's pretty normal for this time of year.

Let's be straight with you. Nothing gets a score above a 1 out of 10, and even that's only for a couple of sessions around Thursday, August 27th afternoon and Friday, August 28th morning. During that Thursday afternoon, we see a bump in energy with a combined energy of all swells directed here of 1131, and a 6ft swell from the northwest. But the wind is cross-on, so it's going to be a choppy, lumpy affair. The Friday morning is similar, 6ft from the NW, but again, cross-on winds. The period is a moderate 10 seconds, so it's not a clean groundswell. For the advanced surfer, it might be worth a look if the tide lines up, but it's a marginal call.

The bottom line is, for the entire 16-day run, conditions are sub-par. The wind is mostly from the north or northwest, which is cross or cross-on for this spot. There's a lot of moderate to fresh breezes. The energy is there in the later part of the month, but the quality is just not there. For a few sessions around the 27th and 28th, the swell does get above 5ft, and some of it is up to 7ft on the 24th, but that's paired with a short period of 8 seconds and direct onshore wind. That's a recipe for a messy, blown-out mess. It's only for the experts if they're desperate.

After that, the first week of September looks like it falls off a cliff, with very small swell and long periods that are directional mismatches. It's a pretty bleak outlook, guys. It's a quiet pattern for this area, and the forecasts will need to change a lot to give us something to smile about.

Rusty.

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