Wildwood Crest Surf Forecast and Surf Report

Alright folks, Rusty here. Let's get down to it for the Wildwood stretch. To be straight with you, the next couple of weeks are looking like a real struggle. We’ve got a long, long stretch of flat, messy, and blown-out conditions ahead, with only a couple of brief moments that might get your heart beating.

We start off dead quiet. From Friday the 11th right through to the end of the week, it’s a write-off. Tiny little slop, 1 ft to 3 ft of weak, onshore junk from the SE with periods hardly hitting 6 seconds. The wind is mostly onshore or cross, and the water is just a mess of ripples and chop. A few sessions on the 13th and 14th clean up with a light offshore, but the swell is still pathetically small (1 ft to 2 ft) with only 29 to 34 units of energy – not enough to push a sea lion off a sandbar. It’s a solid week of nada.

Then, into the second week, it gets a little interesting but still not great. By Friday the 18th, we see a bump in swell energy on the afternoon, hitting 109 units with a 4 ft wave from the ENE. But the wind is a brutal 16 mph cross-off from the NNE, so it’s going to be clean but blown-apart clean. Not the kind of conditions you paddle out for.

Now, the one true standout in this whole 16-day slog falls on Saturday the 19th of September – that’s a full week from now. The morning looks like our best bet. The swell is a modest 3 ft from the east, but the period stretches out to a decent 8 seconds. The combined swell energy bumps up to a moderate 120 units. But here’s the kicker: the wind goes glassy-light offshore from the NW at only 3 mph. That’s going to put a clean, smooth face on those waves. The report says clean conditions, and for the Wildwood Crest sandbar, that’s about as good as it’s going to get. The surf is still small, so it’s manageable for beginners, but the quality will actually be there.

After that little window, it goes bad again. Sunday the 20th brings heavy rain and a screaming 28 mph cross-shore wind. By Monday the 21st, we’ve got 22 mph cross-shore winds and a messy 4 ft swell. As we push into the final days of September, the wind just gets stronger – a near gale on the 24th at 31 mph. That’s not surfable; that’s kite-surfing weather. The swell directions swing from E to ESE with periods up to 11 seconds, but with gale-force cross-off winds, the ocean will be a washing machine.

Bottom line: if you absolutely need to get wet, that Sunday morning the 19th is your only real window. It’s clean, it’s small, and the offshore breeze will make those little 3 ft waves look fun. Every other day this side of a fortnight is a firm pass.

Rusty.

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