The first full week of October (aka OcTUBEr) pumped for four days straight on Long Island, NY. The swell event started on a Wednesday October 9th, 2019 and carried on for the better part of a week-long keg fest. Safe to say Long Island residents were getting copious barrels the entire run of swell.

Thursday, October 10th got large. Surfers from all over started to flock in to the beaches of Rockaway and Long Beach in New York. The Nor’Easter had come off land and was churning right off the coast of Long Island. Swell continued to build, wind stayed strong at NNE, and the surf community looked toward Friday to be the day of days.

On Friday morning, local NY and NJ pros like Balaram Stack, Mike Gleason, Sam Hammer could be seen all suiting up in the same parking lot (along with a hundred other of the surfing community’s peasants). Even more surprising, were out-of-towners like Andrew Doheny, Colin Moran, and Michael Dunphy (to name a few) who flew in for the swell.

And well… You know the rest. Everyone got crazy fucking tubes for hours upon hours. Regular surfing dudes like myself and buddy Tim Mason who tagged along, were lucky to get a few large waves and were satisfied just watching these pros do what they do best.

Sitting by the fire, shooting BBs at beer cans later that night, we read a National Hurricane Center report that stated Subtropical Storm Melissa had formed around 11am that morning, according to NHC. Not only were dudes getting stand-up kegs on that Friday morning, they were literally surfing as the Nor’Easter strengthened and transformed into something entirely different and exclusive to the region. Enjoy photos from the first-ever (I’ve never heard of this before) Tropical Nor’ Easter, Melissa. Enjoy