Saint Annes Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, surfers, Rusty here. Let's have a proper look at what Jersey's got cooking for us over the next couple of weeks.

Right off the bat, I gotta be straight with you: this is a tough stretch for Saint Annes. We're looking at a long, dry spell of poor conditions. From Saturday the 22nd right through to the end of the month, the waves are just not cooperating. The winds are a mess, mostly cross or cross-onshore, and the swell is all over the place. The energy is weak to moderate at best, with values like 265 to 417 in the early days, and it's just not shaping up. You'll be fighting chop and wind ripples more than riding any clean face. It’s a real bummer.

We do finally see a glimmer of hope on the horizon, but we have to wait for it. The first sign of something worth paddling out for arrives on Friday the 28th of August. It's still only marginal, but the swell energy jumps up to a strong 1029, with a clean 6ft SSW groundswell pushing through with a 19-second period. That's a proper long-period groundswell, and for a sheltered reef like Saint Annes, that's the kind of pulse that can make it work. The morning looks best with a light W breeze, though it's cross-onshore. It won't be perfect, but it's the best we've seen in a week.

The weekend of the 29th and 30th carries that same SSW energy, with the swell holding around 4ft and a period still in the 15-17 second range, but the wind turns more westerly and picks up, making it messy. Then, as we move into the first week of September, the swell flips around to a short-period WNW windswell. This means the waves will be more disorganised and choppy. By Monday the 31st of August, the swell is 8ft, but it's short-period (8 seconds) and the wind is howling cross-shore at 15 mph. That's a lot of water moving around with no shape to it. For the experts, it might be a challenge, but for most of us, it's a hard pass.

The standout, if you can call it that, is definitely the early morning of Friday the 28th. That 6ft SSW groundswell with a 19-second period hitting a sheltered reef is the one true pulse of quality in this whole forecast. Don't expect a classic, but it's the best of a bad bunch. Keep in mind that with a period that long, it'll be a bit more walled-up and the sets will be spaced out, but on a reef, that's fine.

Water temps are about average for this time of year, no crazy anomalies to worry about. Just a standard, if frustrating, Jersey summer.

So, in short: the first week is a write-off. The second week offers a brief moment of hope on the 28th, but don't expect a run of good waves. This is a waiting game, lads. The forecasts can change, but right now, it's a lean run.

Rusty.

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