Summer
Hurricane season begins in June, and although the jet stream may be as straight as McGruff Crime Dog, disturbances off Cape Verde can move quickly across the Atlantic, depending on how warm the water is at that point. Anyone on the Outer Banks during the epic summer of 1995 will testify to the glorious tropical gifts that can come with summertime.

Barring hurricanes or tropical storms, south swells can creep in overnight at any given time, sometimes before the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore even sees it, and dawn patrollers can score back-lit morning glass before the college kids shake off their hangovers. Furthermore, due to their relative beach angles, some of the southern beaches like Frisco and Buxton can turn on better in the summer than any other season. So summer sucks on the East Coast, right? Typically, yes. Flatness, jellyfish, tourists... But while spring is the season for hope, summer is the season for surprises. And we all love surprises.

Fall
The tourists thin out, the air cools off, business slowly drops and the surf cranks. North swells, south swells, east swells, windswells, hurricane swells and an abundance of light westerlies -- fall is when you get shacked on the Banks. Big pits, small pits, clean pits, dirty pits -- it's time for all those famous spitting barrels that Hatteras is famous for. You can usually trunk it until October, but those wetsuit vests come in very handy in Dare County. The fishing rocks this time of year also, and if you have the means, go offshore and haul in a boat full. Ask anyone on the East Coast, and most will reveal that there just ain't anywhere better than Hatteras, especially in the fall -- unless there's a hurricane striking the coast. Winter
Outer Banks surfers deal with cold water in the winter, very cold water, sometimes as low as 37 degrees. Add to that stiff northwest winds at about 30 mph, frozen sand, icebergs (no joke) in the sound and you got yourself a real man's hard-core surfing situation. Ice cream headaches don't go away after you emerge from the depths. They continue to throb as the wind whistles through your thin, thin eyelids. A 4/3 wetsuit, a good set of sealed booties and gloves and retractable balls of steel are all musts this time of the year. A hood and a warm girl to curl up with at night are also suggested, but not required. Spring
The water remains cold -- lower 40s to lower 50s -- until the Gulf Stream starts to push in, which can happen early or late in the year. One year, surfers were not able to shed their fullsuits until mid-July. There is never a need to purchase a springsuit on the Outer Banks. Surfers here go straight from trunks to fullsuit and back to trunks, seemingly overnight. The air temperature is constantly rising and falling, but generally feels colder from all the northeasters that cough on the island around this time. This is also the time of the year when sharks become more of a threat, and their usual food ain't even swimming around yet. Still, the waves during spring are second only to fall, and swells (particularly from the north) keep coming and coming, treating the teased adults to a few final blasts before school lets out for the summer.