Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed 13th July)

Forecast Summary (tl;dr)

• Steep spike in raw S swell Thurs, with fresh S’ly winds
• Easing in S swell Fri with winds improving
• Small surf Sat with clean conditions, becoming tiny Sun with continuing clean conditions
• Small S groundswell Tues/Wed
• Troughy, dynamic pattern continues later next week, check back Fri for updates

Recap

Great waves yesterday as SE groundswell slowly eased and offshore winds supplied premium surface conditions. Size was in the 5-6ft range early, slowly easing back through the day. Today has seen a further easing with sets in the 3ft range, bigger 3-4ft on the Hunter and a freshening W/SW flow, tending more SW to SSW through the a’noon. 

Still a bit of energy on tap this morning

This week (July 13-15)

A trough line moving north-wards along the NSW Coast is spawning a surface low pressure system today, with the pressure gradient between the low and a high advancing through the interior creating a stiff S’ly flow along the coast. This S’ly fetch is only thin and short-lived and moves away quite quickly through Friday after generating a spike in ragged S swell. 

Windy and raggedy tomorrow with fresh to strong SSW to S winds. That’ll make a mess of S facing beaches all day, where size will quickly build into the 5-6ft range, bigger 6ft+ across more open S facing stretches on the Central and Hunter Coast. Quality will be low and size much smaller in more protected locations. Keep expectations pegged low for tomorrow.

Friday looks a better bet as the thin fetch moves away quickly and winds moderate through the day. There’s likely to be a fair bit of leftover SW-S wind through the morning, more W’ly biased north of the Harbour, but those winds will ease back through the a’noon, becoming light W/SW in the a’noon. Expect size in the 4-6ft range at S exposed breaks to drop down to 3-4ft through the a’noon, bigger by a foot or so on the Hunter.

This weekend (July 16-17)

Not much change to the weekend outlook. High pressure drifts across NSW at a more sub-tropical latitude typical of late Winter/Spring. That will see a light W’ly flow Sat, tending more NW’ly Sun. So, clean for most beachbreaks and reefs with a SE orientation.

Surf-wise there’s no major swell sources on the charts. 

Small south quadrant leftovers will supply a few 2ft sets on Saturday, worth a look under primo conditions.

By Sunday that will have dribbled away and we’re looking at tiny surf in the 1 to maybe 2ft range at the most reliable swell magnets. Flat at most breaks. Looks like a good day for a snorkel at the local reefs.

Next week (July 18 onwards)

Still looking like a very quiet start to next week. A weak offshore flow is expected Mon with tiny surf continuing.

A weak trough brings a S’ly change Tues, with a fluffy low pressure system off the South Coast aiming a weak fetch at the NSW South Coast. At the moment this doesn’t look like much, maybe generating a small amount of SE swell into Wed, but it could escalate, so check back Friday for any upgrades.

A frontal progression races across the Lower Tasman over the weekend (see below) and this is expected to send a small amount of S’ly groundswell our way arriving Tues in the 2-3ft range, building into the 3-4ft range Wed where it blends with the SE swell under an expected light onshore flow.

Things start to look a little juicier by the end of next week. 

Ongoing troughiness through the Coral and Tasman Sea may spawn another low in the Southern Coral or Northern Tasman, potentially generating solid swell into later next week and the weekend of 23/24 July. Models are still flip-flopping and showing poor consistency run to run, so we’ll just flag it for now. Check back Fri and we’ll see if but amounts to anything substantial.

Seeya then.