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Cross‐shore pressure and current observations from four fringing reefs of lengths ranging from 135 to 420 m reveal energetic low‐frequency (∼0.001–0.05 Hz) motions. The spatial structure and temporal amplitudes of an empirical orthogonal function analysis of the pressure measurements suggest the dominant low‐frequency variability is modal. Incoming and outgoing linear flux estimates also support partially standing modes on the reef flat during energetic events. A cross‐covariance analysis suggests that breakpoint forcing excites these partially standing modes, similar to previous findings at other steep reefs. The dynamics ofSymonds et al. (1982) with damping are applied to a step reef, with forcing obtained by extending a point break model ofVetter et al. (2010) for breaking wave setup to the low‐frequency band using the shoaled envelope of the incident free surface elevation. A one parameter, linear analytical model for the reef flat free surface elevation is presented, which describes between 75% and 97% of the variance of the observed low‐frequency shoreline significant wave height for all reefs considered over a range of conditions. The linear model contains a single dimensionless parameter that is the ratio of the inertial to dissipative time scales, and the observations from this study exhibit more low‐frequency variability when the dissipative time scale is greater than the inertial time scale for the steep reefs considered.