Manasquan Inlet • Statistics for August

August: Tropical Gambles and Late-Summer Swell

August at Manasquan still looks like summer, but the hurricane season enters the picture. Average wave heights nudge back up to 3ft (0.9m) and the period lengthens to 7.5s, a hint of more organized tropical energy. The swell rose remains dominated by SSE, SE and S local windswell, with ESE and E adding more juice than in July. The wind is still favourable with an ideal percentage of 47 percent, and mornings often feature light offshore or variable breezes that hold the small swell together. The wild card is the tropics: a hurricane moving up the Gulf Stream or a tropical storm racing off the Mid-Atlantic can throw 1.5-2.5m (5-8ft) easterly groundswell at the beach, though the accompanying winds can quickly turn the inlet into a howling onshore mess unless a west or northwest flow takes over behind the system. With water temperatures at 22.4°C, it is the warmest month of the year, so any surf you find is worth it.