Topaz Street Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Look, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it – this stretch is looking pretty flat and frustrating for the next two and a half weeks. We’ve got a long, quiet run ahead with hardly anything worth paddling out for. The only spot on the cards is Topaz Street, a beach/jetty setup that’s exposed to the west swell direction, but it’s going to be a battle with tiny, weak energy and iffy conditions most days.

Let’s start with Sunday morning the 16th. We’ve got a tiny 3 ft SSW swell pushing in with a long period of 16 seconds – that’s proper groundswell, which is good for the shape, but the energy is weak, just 326 in the combined swell energy. The wind is a light cross-onshore out of the SW at 6 mph, so it’s not glassy, but it’s not trashed either. The water temp is sitting at 71°, which is a whopping 5° warmer than usual for this time of year – that’s very unusual, like a warm bath out there. Honestly, it’s only a marginal call, and the tide or something else is messing with it. This is the best we get for a while, and it’s not saying much.

From Sunday afternoon, it’s a ghost town. The wind picks up onshore, the swell drops to 2 ft, and we go days with “poor surf conditions” or marginal tags. Monday the 17th, Tuesday the 18th, Wednesday the 19th – all the same story: tiny surf, cross-onshore or onshore wind, and scores of zero or one. The energy stays weak, hanging around the 200s and low 300s. Thursday the 20th is worse, with 2 ft and 190 energy. Friday the 21st sees the swell bottom out at 1 ft. It’s not until Saturday the 23rd that we see a tiny pulse of 1 ft with a 19-second period, but the wind is onshore again.

The whole first week is a write-off. We go from the 16th all the way to the morning of Sunday the 30th with nothing worth getting excited about – that’s a solid 13-day gap of poor to marginal surf. You’d be better off surfing the internet.

But hold up. On Sunday morning the 30th of August, there’s finally a glimmer. We get 3 ft of SSW swell with a 15-second period and the combined energy nudges up to 308. The wind shifts to a light 6 mph SSE breeze, which is cross-offshore, keeping the surface clean. The forecast says “expect good surf conditions” – the only time in the whole run we get a score above 1. This is the standout morning. It’s a tiny wave, but for a beach/jetty break, that cross-off wind and the long-period swell could offer a few fun, shapely runners if the tide lines up. It’s for experts only given the period, but it’s the best we’ve got. Monday morning the 31st is marginal again.

So, if you’re desperate, mark your calendar for that Sunday the 30th morning. Before that, it’s a flat and windy wasteland. The consistency is “fairly consistent” here, so it tends not to stay this poor forever, but this run is a real test of patience.

Rusty out.

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