Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed 22nd Feb)

Forecast Summary (tl;dr)

• Windy S/SE swell Wed, easing Thurs
• Fun small mix of swells with light winds Fri AM
• Small clean surf Sat AM with a’noon sea breezes
• Extending into Sun with freshening N’lies and a pulse of E/SE swell after lunch
• Freshening N’lies Mon with a surfable mixed bag
• Lots of action next week as tropics fire up and low forms off NSW South Coast- stay tuned for updates as low confidence due to model divergence

Recap

Small waves yesterday morning with light winds in the morning that tended mod SE-E/NE in a general onshore flow. A few small S swell lines showed up late and under-sized typical of a super-flukey S swell with some 3ft sets reported. Bit of a mess today with fresh/strong SSE-SE winds after last nights deluge making surface conditions very unattractive just about everywhere with building short period windswell in the 3-5ft range only for the very keen.

Only for the very keen/desperate today

This week (Feb 21 - 24)

Strong high pressure (1035 hPa) is now moving SE of Tasmania with an embedded trough along the advancing ridge ramping up wind speeds from the SSE-SE into the 30kts+ range. Conditions should settle as the high moves into the Tasman and weakens and the ridge relaxes through the end of the week. 

In the short run and there’s not much to recommend with mod/fresh SE winds and short period SSE-SE swell in the 4ft+ range on offer. Protected spots will have a wave for the keen and we should see winds ease a notch during the a’noon though with plenty of chop and lump to deal with it won’t be pretty. 

Friday looks a little better with easing winds, although the synoptic flow is still likely to overpower any morning land breeze apart from the South Coast. Light SE-E winds will tend to E/NE-NE through the a’noon. Surf-wise we’ll see some OK beachies in the morning to 3ft with a mix of SE-E swell trains on a downwards trend. A small fetch off the South Island should level that downwards trend with some small 2-3ft surf from the SE through the a’noon. Nothing amazing but enough to get wet on if you aren’t too fussy.

This weekend (Feb 25 - 26)

Looks like a slight upgrade for Sat morning. The mix of SE swell from the South Island and small E/NE trade swell should be clean under light morning land-breezes and closer to 3ft than 2ft. Nice fun morning of beachbreaks before NE sea breezes kick in.

Morning winds should be light Sun, from the NW before tending to fresher NNE-NE winds in the a’noon. We’ll see more of the same E-E/NE trade swell to 2-3ft with a reinforcing pulse of E/SE swell from a Cook Strait fetch Fri, which just keeps things humming along in the 2-3ft range. Again, nothing fantastic but it’ll keep things surfable for a shortboard.

Next week (Feb 27 onwards)

Wow, lots of action on the charts next week and lots of model divergence, as well as poor run to run consistency. Therefore, expect plenty of revisions on Fri.

Mon looks like freshening N-NNE winds with a mix of leftover E/ESE swell, and building NE windswell to 3ft. We may see a late S’ly change according to EC prognosis.

GFS suggests a cyclone forming between Vanuatu and Fiji and quickly moving south into the South Pacific slot, squeezing onto a pre-existing tradewind fetch. Current modelling has this system tracking quite fast, suggesting a small increase in E/NE swell from the pre-existing trade fetch mid-week and a quick up and down pulse of E swell later next week, with very low confidence on size and timing.

EC suggests this tropical area of low pressure remains more broad and undefined, with just small amounts of trade swell continuing to filter down from the tropics.

Both models are suggesting a small low to form in a trough/front Tues/Wed next week off the NSW South Coast- with a likely sharp increase in short range S swell either later Tues , or Wed with size initially pegged in the 4-5ft range.

More action seems baked into the medium term in the tropics as a cross-equatorial flow and a monsoon trough extending from the Arafura Sea out into the Coral Sea and South Pacific Convergence Zone spawn tropical depressions along the trough line. Stay tuned as we monitor these for surf potential into the first week of March. 

Check back Fri for the latest and a last fine-tune for the weekend.