JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. \u2013 The waves were blown out, the currents were dangerous, and forecasters were telling people to stay home. Some surfers showed up anyway.<\/p>\n
Nor\u2019easter conditions and elevated tides are creating hazardous conditions at beaches across Northeast Florida, and the National Weather Service issued a high surf advisory warning of life-threatening rip currents, minor tidal flooding, and waves expected to persist through Saturday.<\/p>\n
News4JAX was on the ground at Jacksonville Beach, where waves reached 4 to 7 feet Thursday \u2014 with even larger surf forecast for Friday.<\/p>\n
High surf and flooding expected through Saturday<\/p>\n
A full harvest moon is contributing to unusually high tides, raising the risk of minor tidal flooding Thursday night and Friday morning. Wind gusts are expected to reach up to 35 mph.<\/p>\n
Eddie Reinhold, a surfer, was honest about what the water looked like Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now it\u2019s just a blown-out mess, a lot of mush \u2014 you might get lucky if the current pushes you in the right kind of section,\u201d Reinhold said.<\/p>\n
Weather experts are urging swimmers to stay out of the surf zone entirely. Reinhold echoed that warning for anyone without experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, stay out of the surf,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a good time \u2014 there\u2019s people out there surfing, so you just got to be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Surfers say it\u2019s the best waves all summer<\/p>\n
For experienced surfers, the rough weather is a rare opportunity after a quiet summer on the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust get out there and have fun, enjoy the Florida surf while you can \u2014 we don\u2019t have it all summer,\u201d Reinhold said.<\/p>\n
Fellow surfer Tristin Mullen described the challenge of paddling out in the conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBro, it took me so long to paddle out because it just breaks weird,\u201d Mullen said. \u201cI probably had to duck dive like 20 different times to just get out. But this northeastern weather we\u2019re getting is most definitely making it bigger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fewer crowds, but caution still advised<\/p>\n
The rough weather thinned out the usual beach crowd Thursday. Jacksonville Beach resident Jayvee Vegiga said he didn\u2019t mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like it personally \u2014 less people here at the beach, but also a nice cool breeze,\u201d Vegiga said.<\/p>\n
Experts encourage surfers to know their limits and avoid surfing alone during the nor\u2019easter. Conditions are expected to begin calming by Sunday.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. \u2013 The waves were blown out, the currents were dangerous, and forecasters were telling people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,2130,118,117],"class_list":["post-409986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-beach","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}