San Mateo Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Hey, what’s up surfers? Rusty here, with a look at the waves coming our way for San Mateo.

Right off the bat, I gotta be straight with you: this stretch is a real mixed bag. We’ve got some swell on the horizon, but the wind is gonna be a constant battle. Most of the time, it’s blowing cross or cross-onshore, which is gonna mess up the face and keep things from getting really good. The first few days are especially quiet, with only tiny, weak pulses of energy. We’re looking at a long gap of flat, poor conditions from Monday the 24th through most of the first week. The real story here is a slow build-up, with the best chance of a decent wave arriving after a long wait.

We start off Monday, 24 August, with a little 2ft swell from the SW, but with a 16-second period that’s promising. However, the combined energy is only moderate (282) and the cross-shore wind is already a factor, so it’s a marginal call at best. Tuesday and Wednesday look even worse, with the swell dropping and the wind staying on it.

Thursday the 27th shows a tiny flicker of life, but it’s still small and messy. The real ramp-up doesn’t start until Friday the 28th. That morning we see the swell bump up to 3ft from the SW with a 18-second period, and the combined energy jumps to a strong 657. The wind is light cross-shore, which is as good as it’s gonna get. This is the first real window for a surf, but don't expect perfection. By the afternoon, it gets bigger but the cross-onshore wind chops it up.

The standout, and I mean the only real standout in this whole forecast, is the Saturday morning of 29 August. We get a solid 5ft swell from the SW, a 16-second period, and the combined energy is pumping at 1074 – that’s strong stuff. The wind is a moderate cross-shore, so it’ll have some texture, but this is the biggest, most powerful swell of the run. This is for the crew who don’t mind a bit of bump and want some real push. It’s an advanced day for sure, too much for beginners.

After that, the swell backs off but stays rideable through the end of the month and into September. The energy drops back into the moderate range. The morning of Sunday the 30th still has some 4ft sets with a light breeze, but it’s a step down. Then there’s another gap of poor conditions through the first few days of September.

Things get interesting again around Thursday the 3rd and Friday the 4th of September. We see the swell building back up, hitting 4ft on Thursday, then jumping to 6ft on Friday the 4th. That Friday morning (4 Sept) has the biggest swell of the entire forecast at 6ft from the SW, with a 17-second period and an enormous combined energy of 1564. But again, the wind is cross-shore, not clean offshore. For the experienced surfer, that Friday morning is a serious player with heaps of power.

But listen, if I’m picking the one session to point my board at, it’s the morning of Saturday, 29 August. It’s the first real dose of size and power, and while the wind isn't perfect, it's the best balance of conditions we get. The morning of Friday, 4 September, is also heavy but more distant and less certain.

San Mateo is a point break, and all this swell is coming from the SW, which is not its optimum direction of NW. Still, with that long period, a point break can handle it, but don't expect it to be firing at its absolute best. The crowd factor here is "sometimes," so you might have company if you score it good.

This is Rusty, signing off.

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