Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 11th October)

Best Days: Sun/Mon: strong SE swell with improving conditions as winds swing offshore.

Recap

The swell dropped back temporarily into dawn yesterday after Wednesday's building S'ly swell, but a new pulse of stronger S/SE due into the afternoon hit about mid-morning, with punchy and consistent 6ft sets across exposed northern ends and south facing beaches. Conditions deteriorated into the afternoon with a strong S'ly wind.

This swell eased back a touch overnight, with easing 4-5ft+ waves on offer today with early light winds, now moderate onshore from the SE.

This week and weekend (Oct 12 - 18)

These notes will be brief as Ben’s on annual leave.

We've got a temporary low point in swell at dawn tomorrow, ahead of a large and slightly upgraded SE groundswell event into the afternoon through Monday.

Yesterday's pulse of S/SE groundswell was generated as the Tasman Low which formed off our coast Tuesday evening, strengthened south-east of us Wednesday.

The low since weakened a touch and drifted south-east towards New Zealand, and is sitting just west of the South Island, aiming a slightly stronger that forecast fetch of gale-force SE winds towards the southern NSW coast.

The low reached a peak in intensity yesterday afternoon and evening, and satellite observations picked up a nice pass of the low (below). This will result in a large SE groundswell spreading out towards us, kicking strongly Saturday afternoon with the morning likely to be around 3-5ft across south swell magnets, building to 6ft+ through the afternoon.

Sunday morning looks to offer the peak in swell with 6ft to occasionally 8ft waves across northern ends and exposed south facing spots across all southern NSW, easing slightly into the afternoon, but more noticeably down from 4-6ft Monday morning.

The weakening low over the coming days will continue to aim a fetch of strong SE winds towards us until early Sunday morning, keeping south swell magnets around 3-4ft into Tuesday morning, but easing back to 2ft+ through the afternoon.

Looking at the local winds, and tomorrow a moderate to fresh SE breeze will create poor conditions across all locations, though we may see a period of variable winds on the Northern Beaches at dawn.

Sunday looks better with a lighter SW-S/SW breeze in the morning, shifting SE later morning but only moderate in strength and E into the afternoon. Monday looks great with a light NW offshore before fresh NE sea breezes kick in late morning.

South swell magnets will be the pick Tuesday with a N/NW offshore ahead of NE sea breezes again.

The models diverge on the outlook from mid-week with a NE windswell likely into Wednesday, but this may persist through Thursday as the ECMWF models doesn't have a W'ly change moving through until Thursday morning, while GFS has it moving through Wednesday morning.

On top of this a small pulse of E/SE swell is expected on Thursday from a fetch of strong to gale-force E/SE winds are generated out of Cook Strait Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

Size wise we're looking at a pulse to 2-3ft out of the E/SE, but more on this and the NE windswell Monday. Have a great weekend!