Surf City Pier Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright, let’s get real about the next couple of weeks. To be honest, it’s looking pretty flat and bleak out there for a while. Don’t get your hopes up just yet.

For the next week and a half, we’re looking at a whole lot of nothing. The swell is tiny, the period is short, and most of the time the wind is junk. We’re talking ankle-biters in the 2ft to 3ft range, with periods under 8 seconds. It’s going to be a battle for anything rideable, and honestly, most of it will be a close-out or just mush. The combined energy is weak, mostly in the 20s to 60s, which really shows how little juice there is in the water.

There might be a small window on the morning of Friday the 11th when a light WSW breeze swings offshore at Surf City Pier. It’ll be tiny – maybe 2ft – but it will be clean. If you’re desperate, that’s your best bet for a few grovelly ones. Then again, the wind shifts onshore again by the afternoon, so it's a short window. The morning of Monday the 14th also has some glassy conditions but with even less swell, so it’s really just a paddle-around kind of day.

Now, for the longer range. There’s a glimmer of hope around Monday the 21st and Tuesday the 22nd. The swell starts to pick up a bit – we see it building from 3ft to 4ft, and the energy starts to get moderate, finally jumping to a 155 reading on Tuesday morning. The period is still short, so it’s not going to be world-class, but at least there’s some size. Tuesday the 22nd looks the most interesting as a NNE cross-offshore wind will keep things relatively clean. It's still not big, but it’s the most surfable it’s looked in a while.

Then, on the 24th, there’s a pulse of swell that pushes the heights to 5ft, and the energy jumps to a strong 458. However, it’s got a short period (9 seconds) and the wind will be a cross-shore NE breeze, making it messy. The direction is from the ENE, which is okay for this spot, but it’ll be a bit of a mixed bag. It’s promising, but a week and a half out, I wouldn’t book the day off work for it yet.

Surf City Pier (Santa Cruz) is the only spot on the map, and it’s exposed, so it’s all we get. It’s a sandbar, so the quality will always be a bit of a crap shoot.

In short: for the next week, find something else to do. There’s a slight chance of a clean, tiny wave on the morning of the 11th, but the real potential comes around the 21st and 22nd, and especially the 24th when there's a real pulse of energy. But it’s a long way out, so let’s just see how it shapes up.

Rusty

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