Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by James Casey (issued Wednesday 31st March)

Best Days: Thursday and Friday early with an easing swell

Outlook:

• Offshore winds early with easing SE swell on Thursday and Friday
• Small waves on the weekend, clean early. 
• Small E/NE swell from low in Coral Sea and S groundswell combining early next week 
• Potential for larger E/NE swell for later in the week 

Recap

How good is when the swell over delivers? I think we can all agree the last two days have been better than expected with a nice 3-4ft S swell filling in across the coast. 

Mornings have been the pick with light W/SW winds and a real autumn feel to it. Afternoons have been windier but still decent options at north facing beaches. 

Today the swell seems to have tailed off a little after yesterday afternoon's peak up around the 4ft+ mark, bigger for the Hunter.

Into the weekend

The ridge that brought strong S winds the last few days will shift north tomorrow as the centre of the high moves over us. This means you can expect a light offshore breeze in the morning with a light onshore breeze later in the day. 

Wave wise we will have to rely on the same S swell for the rest of the week. Tomorrow will be decent and with S swell magnets smoother than what they have been due to lighter winds. We can expect 3ft waves for Sydney, more like 3-4ft for the Hunter and 2-3ft for the Illawarra. 

It’ll be smaller on Friday, more like 2ft for Sydney and the Illawarra and 2-3ft for the Hunter. The only good news is the swell will be a bit more E/SE and with light offshore winds early staying light but tending onshore later in the day. 

The weekend is going to be small, 1-2ft E swell and not much push to it. Models also have a minor S'ly swell pulsing through the weekend - no major size but maybe some 1-2ft sets at south swell magnets, bigger across the Hunter, originating from a poorly aligned frontal sequence south of Tas over the next few days. But pretty inconsistent and not that amazing.

Both days are looking similar with winds light and offshore in the morning and a NE sea breeze set to puff up in the afternoon. 

The new week

Well we have a mixed bag for next week with some flukey S groundswells mixing in with a NE swell for the start of the week before a larger E/NE swell fills in later. 

Let's start with the S groundswells. These are forming south of Tassie with a series of long wave frontal progressions. The first looks to be too poorly aimed so I’d say we’d only see inconsistent 2ft waves for south facing beaches on Monday, though the Hunter often does pretty well from these kinds of systems and we could see occasional 3ft+ sets. 

The second is slightly better aimed so we will see more size from it and with a better spread across Sydney and the Illawarra as well. I’d expect an inconsistent 2-3ft at south facing beaches on Tuesday, pushng 4ft across the Hunter.

At the same time as these flukey long period S swells move past the coast an E/NE swell will come into play. 

This E/NE swell will be generated from a tropical low that forms in the Coral Sea and drifts south, squeezing a high in the Tasman. It should produce a small E/NE trade swell for the start of the week before ramping up towards the end of the week as the low shifts S where it could become a Tasman Low. 

The swell will start off small around the 2ft mark, adding a bit more consistency to the S groundswell, before ramping up late Wednesday into Thursday. There’s still plenty that could change though so take the size in the forecast with a grain of salt but if it does what some models are suggesting today it will be up in the 6ft+ range.  

Conditions wise we will have S/SE winds for much of the start of the week although Monday morning could see lighter winds ahead of the S change. From Wednesday winds will get stronger and more E/SE as the low shifts S before strengthening and turning more SW by Thursday afternoon. Basically it’s going to be pretty bumpy with southern corners your best bet for most of the week.

We’ll be keeping a close eye this low forming in the Coral Sea and the progression of the S groundswells. Tune in on Friday for an update.