The weather and wave forecasts

HURRICANE SURF

We get a lot of questions here at Surfing Dominican Republic about how the hurricanes affect the surf here in the DR, and about the safety.

Historically the Atlantic hurricanes that pass by the Dominican Republic has 2 type of tracks, North or South.

The right arrow shows Cabarete.

As you can see on the image half of the hurricanes pass south of the DR into the Caribbean, which will bring good surf to the south of the island, when this happens, the north coast of the DR is business as usual, at times with clear sunny skies and no rain ( they don’t bring any change in wave size on the north coast either). The hurricanes that pass north do bring change, but since most of the hurricanes pass well north a few 100 miles north ( we get some rain and a day or so of strong winds) but after that the  waves pick up and we all get excited over double overhead surf for days to come. Another side effect of the hurricanes is that for a week or so it changes the trade winds, so we can have days where it’s all glassy or offshore.

Some tropical storms or hurricanes come close to the North coast, but in the last 10 years none of the big hurricanes have done any major damage in the Cabarete area, other than some debris from the palm trees.

Hurricane season

The majority of the hurricanes in the Atlantic happens between late August and mid October. So if you are into chasing big hurricane swell, this would be the time to visit the Dominican Republic.

Hurricane surf pics

Here are some pictures from the last few years when hurricanes created great surfing conditions.

ENCUENTRO WAVE FORECAST