Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri 4th Aug)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small mixed bag Sat AM- NE windswell and traces of S swell with NW winds shifting W’ly then SW-S
• Stronger S swell blend Sun but wind affected with mod S-SE flow
• Should see some small E/NE tradewind swell filtering down from sub-tropics early next week
• Troughy outlook next week small at least through the first half of the week
• Tricky, troughy outlook from mid next week- nothing major expected but check back Mon for latest update

Recap

Plenty of S swell in the water yesterday morning with size to 3-4ft across S exposed breaks, a notch bigger on the Hunter. Lovely clean conditions early under W-NW winds with a fresh N’ly flow in the a’noon kicking up a minor NE windswell. Small amounts of NE windswell are mixed in with remnant S swell this morning to create a few peaky 2ft options, bigger 3ft on the Hunter. Early land breezes are now tending NW then freshening from the N again. 

A few semi-peaky options on the beachies as NE windswell cut against remnant S-S/SE swell

This weekend (Aug 5-6)

Sat still looks the best day of the weekend as a trough and front terminating in a compact low approach from the W. This will see the N’ly flow tend NW, then W’ly by late morning/lunchtime before the front brushes temperate NSW and brings a SW-S change. Small mixed bag of NE windswell and traces of long period S swell offer up some 2ft options on the beachies, nice and clean when the W’ly pushes through. 

The low looks a bit more robust than it did on Wed and with a high pressure ridge building in quickly behind the change there’ll be a decent amount of S swell energy in the water Sun, up around the 2-3ft range at least, although heavily wind affected at S facing exposures. Cleaner, smaller options should be on tap at more protected locations. Nothing amazing but enough to find a wave Sun if you aren’t too fussy.

Next week (Aug 7 onwards)

Not much change expected for the outlook for early-mid next week.

Reinforcing high pressure moving towards and then East of Tasmania maintains a fairly weak ridge up the NSW Coast with a light S’ly flow Mon and Tues. We should see morning land breezes both days before the synoptic flow kicks in. 

No major swell sources on offer. Small amounts of E/NE swell filtering down from the sub-tropical tradewind fetch and some minor S windswell. All told we’re looking at 1-2ft surf at best- just enough for a grovel on the best beachie bank you can find.

A minor SE fetch around a troughy area in the central Tasman may supply some small SE swell Wed/Thurs but keep expectations low.

That troughy pattern is causing problems for weather models from mid next week so we may be up for major revision when we come back Mon. There’s lot of model to model variability and divergence between models.

We may see a developing N’ly flow Thurs and possible workable NE windswell as the high drifts towards NZ and a trough approaches. That trough may move offshore late next week and maintain NE-E/NE swell with an onshore flow into the weekend.

Alternatively GFS suggests a weak, troughy pattern persisting across the coast and into the Tasman with no major swell sources into the weekend.

Any potential low pressure development in the South Pacific window north of NZ now looks to race away to the SE or be blocked by the North Island with very low odds for quality E swell for Eastern Aus.

We’ll keep fingers crossed and see how it looks Mon.

Until then, have a great weekend!