Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by James Casey (issued Friday 26th March)

Best Days: The weekend is looking the pick for waves the next week. Saturday best, Sunday morning close behind. 

Outlook:

• Saturday 2-3ft with nice conditions for most the day
• Sunday slower but still 2-3ft early, becoming bumpy later in the day
• Tuesday/Wednesday a 3ft pulse of S/SE swell but with moderate S/SE winds
• Not much for the end of the week 

Recap

Well much nicer conditions have graced our shores the last few days. Yesterday was 3ft out of the E/NE and clean with light winds for most the day. If your local had a decent bank you would’ve had fun out there. 

Water quality was still a bit of an issue though with plenty of debris in the brown/green water. I’d expect local councils to begin the clean up along the beaches soon as most the debris makes it’s way into shore. 

This morning waves were clean with light SW winds and waves in the 2-3ft range for Sydney and the Illawarra, a bit larger for the Hunter with waves in the 3ft+ range with a new pulse of SE swell. 

Into the weekend

Well expect nice conditions tomorrow morning to kick off your weekend. Winds will be light and offshore for most of the day before a weak N breeze puffs up in the late afternoon. I’d expect similar waves to what we’ve had today, 2-3ft, maybe a little smaller but it’ll be in the same ball park. 

This lingering swell is from the easterly trough low that moved off and out to sea earlier in the week. The trough associated with it continued to draw in E winds ahead of it whipping up a nice little swell to provide us with some waves during this otherwise quiet period. 

This E pulse will begin to ease on Sunday and with S winds, it’s looking like the lesser of the two days for waves. I wouldn’t write it off completely as winds will be SW early providing clean conditions for most locations. There’ll still be some inconsistent 2-3ft waves around early but it’ll ease throughout the day to more like 2ft and become even slower. 

As the day goes on winds will swing around to the SE and deteriorate so best to go earlier if you can. A trough associated with the S change will weaken and move offshore as a ridge builds over the coast delivering S/SE winds for the start of the new week. 

The new week

By Monday there won’t be much of that E swell left, instead there’ll be a new S wind swell mixed in with the S winds. These winds will be more offshore early and more onshore later in the day. 

By Tuesday a mid period S swell will materialise. It’ll be generated to the east of Tassie on Monday morning, as a trough squeezes the ridge of high pressure set up over the east coast. I’d expect about 3ft+ waves for south facing beaches, peaking in the afternoon to evening and lingering until Wednesday morning early. 

The swell will shift more SE on Wednesday and weaken as the day goes on. It’ll drop to 2-3ft by Wednesday afternoon. 

Winds will remain out of the S for this entire swell event so I wouldn’t get too excited about it. You’ll be confined to southern corners for the best conditions but less swell will get in so you may need to put up with the bumpier conditions or go early to try and get some of the SW winds rather than the S/SE later in the day. 

There isn’t too much else going on for the end of the week. There are indications of a decent sized low to move up next to Tassie around April 1st. At this stage there is still plenty of model disagreement so lets keep an eye on it, I’ll delve into it more on Monday.