Tijuana Sloughs Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let’s get into it.

Right off the bat, we’ve got a quiet spell at Tijuana Sloughs. The first week is looking pretty weak and messy. For the first few days, you’re looking at tiny, junky little waves around 2 ft from the SW. The wind is mostly cross or cross-onshore, chopping things up. Not a lot to get excited about. The wave energy is in the low to moderate range (values like 354 and 394), and water temps are sitting at a touch warmer than normal for the time of year, about 70°F – that’s a nice thing to have in the back of your mind for when it gets better.

We’ve got a long stretch of marginal conditions here. The swell is small, the period is long (18 seconds), which is a deep water groundswell, but with almost no size and bad wind, it’s just not doing anything for the river mouth. This is a break that is consistent, but right now it’s consistently poor. The crowd situation is "sometimes" here, so you’ll see people, but not many will be out in this. The east-northeast offshore wind direction is ideal for this spot, but we aren't getting that at all.

There’s a glimmer of hope on Sunday the 19th with a bit of a bump in energy (1060), but it’s still just a marginal 3 ft wave. The real story starts to change late in the second week. Keep your eyes on Thursday the 23rd. The afternoon looks like a standout. We get a solid 6 ft swell from the S, with a period of 14 seconds, and the wind goes glassy – 5 km/h from the S. That’s the moment. The wave energy jumps hard to 1299, and the conditions are listed as excellent for experienced surfers. This is the best on offer in the whole window. The swell is over 5 ft, so it’s stepping into intermediate-to-expert territory, and with that glassy surface, it’ll be clean.

Following that, Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th see the swell pumping up to 7 ft and 8 ft from the S. That’s big, powerful stuff. The wave energy is massive (2172, 3456, 2816). This is for experts only. The wind is cross-onshore, so it won’t be as clean as Thursday’s glassy session, but the power is there. The long period on the 24th (15-16 seconds) means it’ll be a strong groundswell, but at a beach/river setup, it might be a bit straight and tricky. Still, for the brave, it’s a go.

After that big pulse, the surf drops back to smaller, more manageable 3 ft-4 ft SW swell for the last few days of the month, with onshore winds and a bit of chop. That’s the tail end.

So, the one true standout is Thursday afternoon, the 23rd of July. Glassy, solid 6 ft, all that energy. Get on it. The rest of the first week is a write-off. The second week has a big, powerful window for experts, but Thursday is the goldilocks day.

Rusty out.

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