Plenty of fun waves out of the eastern quadrant

Ben Matson picture
Ben Matson (thermalben)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 30th August)

Best Days: Sat: improving surf conditions as winds ease, though keep your expectations low (best conditions south from Sydney). Sun: fun peaky mix of easing swells with mainly light winds. Mon: fun E/NE swell with light winds. 

Recap: Developing S’ly tending SE winds and building local swells haven’t really created many surfable options over the last few days. We’ve got 4-5ft+ of junky, onshore surf at exposed beaches. 

This weekend (Aug 31 - Sep 1)

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OK, expectations have taken a few steps back for the weekend. 

The trough currently sitting off the Mid North Coast will gradually weaken into Saturday, a little more slowly than model guidance suggested during the middle of the week. This means despite an expectation for today’s cross-onshore winds to ease in strength, in the absence of a synoptic offshore, it’ll take some time for conditions to improve.

But perhaps I’m going a little overboard downplaying the outlook for Saturday.

The trough will be mainly focused between Sydney and the Hunter region, and in fact model guidance is suggesting winds could be down to 10kts by early Saturday, even variable in some spots (definitely more likely south from the Illawarra). However it’s just hard to be confident in how quickly conditions will improve as the wind eases, because there’s no way of knowing whether we’ll see a gradual abating trend in the airstream (less ideal), or an abrupt cessation (more ideal). Isolated regions of SW winds can't be ruled out though they're much more likely to occur in the south.

Either way, we’e also looking at slowly easing local swell from the SE, up to 3-5ft at exposed beaches - again, mainly between Sydney and the Hunter - smaller at protected southern ends and with a little less size south from the Illawarra. There’ll also be a small long period S’ly swell in the mix, showing 2-3ft at south swell magnets. 

Expect lumpy but improving conditions, getting better more rapidly in the south than in the north where we could see more bumpy/choppy options first up, trending lumpy as the local winds ease. 

The slight delay on the easing phase of this local trough has also slightly delayed the early developmental stages of the second trough, expected to broaden across the Northern Tasman Sea this weekend. It’ll now strengthen through Saturday, reach maturity early Sunday and then weaken from Monday. This means the resulting E/NE swell has also been pushed back a little, and will be a touch smaller than Wednesday’s notes indicated.

Sunday is however looking very clean on the surface with light offshore winds and light afternoon sea breezes (the afternoon synoptic northerly has been diminished because of the timing of the trough). Sunday will see a combination of mainly easing SE swell and late building E/NE swell, max surf size is likely to be around the 3ft mark though there could be a delay on the arrival of the new E/NE energy so aim for a morning paddle for the best size prospects.

Next week (Sep 2 onwards)

Then models really don’t like the look of the inbound E/NE swell, estimating just 1-2ft from this source on Monday. 

Whilst it’s not going to light up the coast with phenomenal A-frames, I think we’ll see a fun day of waves with light offshore winds and peaky sets in the 3ft+ range at exposed beaches, perhaps a little smaller on the South Coast too.

Wave heights will ease slowly from this source into Tuesday and Wednesday as the trough moves further to the east, and we’ll see mainly light winds and clean conditions. 

A modest front will push out of Bass Strait early Tuesday morning and generate a brief flush of S’ly swell, but I fear it’ll peak overnight with occasional 2-3ft sets at reliable south swell magnets, before easing rapidly through Wednesday. Let’s take closer look at this on Monday.

Looking further ahead, and a strong frontal system is expected to push into the lower south-eastern Tasman Sea mid-late next week, which should generate some very good S/SE groundswell next weekend. Further strong southerly swells are expected to trail behind this.

Have a great weekend! See you Monday. 

Comments

Lottolonglong's picture
Lottolonglong's picture
Lottolonglong Sunday, 1 Sep 2019 at 1:23pm

What time tomorrow U think winds will turn south?

udo's picture
udo's picture
udo Sunday, 1 Sep 2019 at 1:30pm

6am