Virginia Beach Surf Season
Virginia, USA · part of the Virginia Beach spot guide
Prime is late summer through fall, August to October, for hurricane groundswell, plus winter nor’easters from November to March. Mid-summer is the most consistently surfable — warm water, frequent light offshore mornings, small clean windswell, with July the reliable-but-small month — but the biggest, best-quality surf comes from tropical systems in the fall and powerful North Atlantic lows in winter. Spring is the flattest, least organised stretch.
Where the swell comes from
Atlantic hurricanes and tropical systems for the long-period southeast-to-east-southeast groundswell that makes it genuinely good, winter nor’easters for northeast-to-east-northeast swell, and frequent but low-quality local windswell the shelf saps quickly.
Historic swells at Virginia Beach
Hurricane Florence
A long, powerful southeast swell built to the Mid-Atlantic as Florence approached, with East Coast surfers scoring some of the biggest waves in years on nearby barrier islands.
Hurricane Dorian
Delivered the biggest surf in months to the northern half of the East Coast, including the Virginia Beach coast, with windows of favourable conditions as it paralleled the coast.