The Wedge Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G'day, I'm Rusty. Let me tell you about the surf over the next couple of weeks.

Right off the bat, I gotta be straight with you – it's a tough outlook for The Wedge. We're looking at a 16-day stretch with nothing that's worth paddling out for. The first solid run of surf kicks off on August 8th (Saturday afternoon) with a tiny 0.6m SSW groundswell rolling in at a long 16 seconds. The combined energy is weak at 271, but the wind is a cross-shore breeze at 20 km/h, which just messes things up. The water's a balmy 23°, which is much warmer than normal for this time of year – that's a 3° anomaly, so it's bloody unusual.

From there, it's a grim picture. Through the rest of August 8th and all the way into the second week, we see nothing but poor surf conditions. The swell stays small, between 0.4m and 1.0m, and it's mostly coming from the SSW, which is the optimum direction for The Wedge, but it doesn't matter. The wind is nearly always cross-on or cross-shore, with light to moderate breezes that keep the surface choppy and messy.

Even when the combined energy climbs into the moderate range – like on August 14th (Friday) when we hit 385 to 468, or August 15th (Saturday) with 515 to 574 – the wave comment still says "poor surf conditions." On August 15th afternoon, the swell pushes to 1.0m with a 16-second period, but the 20 km/h cross-shore wind creates a cross-chop that ruins any chance of a clean wave.

The long-period groundswell (over 15 seconds) shows up here and there – like on August 11th with 18-second swell and August 14th with 19-second swell – but at a beach break like The Wedge, that kind of long period tends to make waves break too straight and fat. It's just not fun.

For the whole 16-day window, every session gets a score of 0 out of 10, or a 1 at best, which they call "marginal surf forecast or questionable tide conditions." There's no standout, no highlight. If you're desperate, the closest thing to a "maybe" would be August 15th morning (Saturday) when the swell hits 0.8m with a 16-second period and the cross-shore wind is only 15 km/h – that's still poor conditions, but it's the least bad option in a sea of bad.

Fair dinkum, it's a blank run. For The Wedge, this is just how it goes sometimes – the forecasts can change, but right now, there's nothing to get excited about. Save your energy for another week.

Rusty.

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