For most people along the East Coast, the recent nor’easter was a nightmare. But for surfers, there was one very different side to the storm.
New Jersey novelty-wave specialist Ben Gravy captured the payoff in his latest video, scoring clean, powerful surf after days of violent weather battered the coast. The footage shows groomed walls, hollow sections, and legit barrels—the kind of East Coast conditions that can appear for only a few hours once a major storm’s winds finally cooperate.
Check out the recap below.
Surfline had forecast overhead to locally double-overhead swell across the Northeast, with western Long Island among the areas turning on once winds swung offshore.
Offshore, the storm was producing something much uglier.
The National Weather Service estimated seas around 20 feet off Ocean City, Maryland, noting that individual waves could have approached 30 feet. Several communities endured eight to 10 consecutive tide cycles of moderate-to-major flooding.
“It’s claiming it’s 10 feet at 12 [seconds] right now… Tomorrow morning it’s going to be 15.4 feet at 12 seconds,” Gravy reported from the beach. “We got the front of it… and now we’re getting into like the actual gnarly part of the swell.”
NASA described the late-September nor’easter as “powerful and unusual,” reporting extensive beach erosion, flooding, wind damage, flight disruptions, and widespread power outages. Montauk recorded a peak gust of 81 mph, while waves destroyed sections of North Carolina Highway 12 on Pea Island.
At least one person was killed when a tree fell in Brooklyn, while more than 100,000 customers lost power during the storm.
And yet, when the chaos briefly aligned, surfers scored.
Related: Watch: Historic 6-Foot Boat Wave Produces Freakishly Perfect Barrels
It’s becoming familiar territory for Gravy. Just weeks earlier, he and Jacob “Zeke” Szekely discovered a freakishly perfect six-foot ferry wake that Gravy compared directly to Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch.
“Did it not look like Lemoore?” Gravy said. “It looked like the Kelly wave pool.”
This time, no ferry was necessary.
The Atlantic provided more than enough horsepower.
Related: Watch: 15-Foot Waves Hammer Massachusetts Coast During Monster Nor’easter
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