The South Jetty Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Let’s be straight with you – this outlook for The South Jetty is a tough one. There’s a real dry spell on the cards for the next week and a half, with barely a ripple worth getting wet for. We’re looking at a long gap of small, weak swell and poor conditions, before a late pulse of energy shows up around the 18th of August. Even then, it’s messy. Let’s walk through it.

The South Jetty is a beach and jetty setup, and it’s exposed to the south-east. For the first nine days, from Friday 7 August right through to the middle of the month, it’s flat out frustrating. Every session is marked as poor surf conditions. The swell sits around 1 ft to 3 ft, with periods between 5 and 7 seconds – that’s weak, short-period wind swell. The combined swell energy is tiny, ranging from 10 to 74 (that’s weak energy). The wind is all over the shop: cross, cross-on, and cross-off, with a few clean windows on Sunday 9 August morning and Tuesday 11 August, but the waves are just too small and gutless to do anything with. You’d be floating on a log, not surfing.

There’s a real lull from 14 August to 17 August, with swell dropping to 1 ft to 2 ft and energy barely scraping 20. A few offshore mornings on 14 August (NW wind, 9 mph) and 21 August (NNW, 12 mph) keep it clean, but the waves are ankle-high. It’s not worth paddling out.

Then, around Tuesday 18 August, we see a bump. The morning brings 5 ft swell from the SE, with a period of 5 seconds and combined energy at 126 (moderate). The wind is a gentle cross-shore from the ENE at 9 mph. That’s the biggest swell in the whole run, but it’s short-period and there’s slight cross-chop. The afternoon on the 18th jumps to 6 ft from the ESE, period 7 seconds, and energy jumps to 247 (moderate). But the wind switches to a direct onshore from the SSE at 9 mph, and the conditions are listed as unknown – that’s a red flag. The swell is over 5 ft, which is too much for beginners, and the onshore wind will chop it up. For confident intermediates, it’s the only window with any real push, but don’t expect anything clean.

The 19th of August sees the swell drop back to 3 ft from the ESE and E, period 7 seconds, with moderate cross-shore winds and a cross-chop, plus a risk of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Energy is still moderate at 107 to 110. The 20th has cleaner offshore winds from the WNW (19-22 mph) but the swell is already fading to 2 ft to 2 ft. The last few days of the outlook are back to tiny, weak, and forgettable.

If I had to pick the best of the lot, it’s the morning of Tuesday 18 August. That 5 ft SE swell with cross-shore wind is the closest we get to a surfable wave, but it’s far from a standout. The crowd profile says the South Jetty can get busy sometimes, and with this being the only real swell in the whole 16 days, it’ll likely be packed. The water temperature anomaly is not provided, so we’ll skip that.

Honestly, for paddle surfing, it’s a grim run. The setup on the 18th, with that 6 ft onshore mess, might actually be more interesting for the kite crowd than us. Keep your eyes on the long-range forecasts, because it tends not to stay this flat forever.

Rusty.

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