The biggest south swell in years is about to slam Southern California — and at The Wedge in Newport Beach, some of the locals are worried about more than the wipeouts.
According to both the GFS and European weather models, over the weekend the system was producing 45-to-48-foot seas in the South Pacific and slingshotting its energy directly at the Southern California coast. This lit up countless peaks Peak hits Tuesday, June 9 into Wednesday, with the buoys expected to crack 5.2 at 19 seconds.
“For reference, that big swell we had back in March was 4.2 at 18 seconds,” Jeremy said. “A shorter period and less swell. This is comparable to the Fourth of July swell from 2020, which was about as big as it gets. Probably one of the biggest swells in the last five or six years.”
For the Yucca Fins crew, who’ve been riding Newport’s most notorious wave for two decades, the waves aren’t what they’re worried about. It’s the beach itself.
“I’ve watched the sand disappear over the last 20 years surfing at Wedge,” said Yucca Fins co-founder Starky. “It’s changed the wave and is now making an already dangerous wave even more dangerous.”
What used to be a sandy section now exposes the rocks of the Wedge jetty — the curving structure that turns into a seawall and runs horizontal to the beach. With the sand level dropped so far, those rocks now sit visible in the lineup, creating what locals have started calling the Wedge Reef. It’s not exactly the reef you want either. As rocks break from the jetty they can be scattered through the impact zone.
The jetty itself is showing wear and parts are starting to crumble from underneath. It’s not hard to imagine why given the amount of energy it takes throughout half of the year. The sand underneath, that once supported the rocks above, is gone. As that sand goes, so does the natural buffer that slows the surf before it reaches the seawall.
“We haven’t had a proper swell like this in a few years,” Starky said, “and it’s delayed the conversation around the erosion happening at Wedge. But the issue is becoming hard to ignore.”
The Wedge isn’t alone. California’s coastline has been losing sand for years — to sea level rise, to dammed and modified river systems that send less sediment seaward, to storm cycles that pull sand offshore faster than it returns. What makes The Wedge different is its singular geometry. The jetty, the seawall, and the steep angle that creates the wave in the first place are the same structures now being stripped. None of these are natural and, long before the jetty, the swells were magnified by Newport Submarine Canyon, a deep underwater trench that funnels open-ocean swell energy directly to shore with little of the natural buffering most of the California coast gets.
One thing is for sure, there’s plenty of energy in the water and that can bring both epic waves and gnarly destruction. “Hopefully the beach can hold on and survive what’s coming,” says Starky.
Related: 20ft Waves Explode at The Wedge for Rare Swell (Video)
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