Day off, small and clean. A long-period S/SSW groundswell (12–16s, ~208°) is the story with a little NW windswell mixed in — buoys are only 1.6–2.3ft, so waist-to-chest, chest-high on the reef sets. Wind is the draw: light E offshore at dawn, glassy through ~9am, then W sea breeze fills by noon and blows 10kt onshore all afternoon. Tide rises slowly all morning from a ~2.8ft low-mid at dawn, crossing 4ft around 10–11am and fattening after. Cardiff Reef wants exactly this — long-period south wraps onto the reef and lines up long, and kelp grooms the light texture better than Ponto's open bars. Get there early, keep expectations modest. Bigger S swell (4–5ft) is due 9/6–9/7 for the weekend.
Data pulled Thu Sep 3 ~7:03pm PT (evening run, targeting Fri 9/4 dawn) · buoys + NOAA tides + NWS + Open-Meteo. Wavecast + Surfline not checked (no browser in automated runs).
Tippers clears all four rubric factors (optimal S angle, 12–16s over the reef's 12s threshold, offshore E wind, incoming low-mid tide) and scores 100 — but it's held to ON, not FIRING, because the face is only waist-to-chest; the scoring table has no size term, so read the label. South Ponto is the same call one notch down — peaks where the S and NW cross the bars, slight long-period closeout risk on the straight sections. Blacks gets no canyon focus at ~12s — just a small, long-walk beach break today.
Days to Watch
Sun Sep 6 – Mon Sep 7: new S swell building to ~4–5ft at 8am (Open-Meteo), though period drops to 10–11s — the size upgrade, weekend timing. Water a warm 71°F.