Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Mon 30th Oct)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Fun E swell Mon, with an a’noon rebuild as new pulse fills in
• Early offshore winds Tues with an a’noon S’ly change- winds tending fresh S/SE in the a'noon
• Strong E'ly groundswell pulse tomorrow, peaking through the day
• Light S-SE winds Wed with a morning peak in E swell, plenty of mid period S swell on offer
• Easing swells Thurs, mostly from the S with a light/lingering S’ly flow
• Light winds Fri with small leftovers for the beachies
• Small mixed bag Sat
• Bigger NE windswell Sun
• Looks quiet next week, likely small NE windswell 

Recap

Plenty of solid, good/great waves over the weekend with Sat seeing 3-4ft surf from the S/SE, bigger 4-6ft on the Hunter and lower MNC with clean morning conditions. Bigger on Sun with solid 6ft sets on the Hunter- a notch smaller elsewhere- with a clean morning under W-N/W winds before nor-easters kicked up. Today is seeing another really fun day with more E’ly quadrant swell in the 3ft range, bigger 4ft on the Hunter. Clean morning conditions with NW winds although the N’ly wind got up quickly across the Sydney basin. All in all, a very tidy swell event for the end of October.

Strong lines on the Hunter over the weekend

This week (Oct 30- Nov 3)

The Tasman low of sub-tropical origins which has sprayed the East Coast with swell is now just north of the North Island, with some swell generating winds still active to the west of the North Island, although quite limited in length. It’s deepened and is hammering the North Island. Weak high pressure in the Tasman is directing a N’ly flow across most of the East Coast, with a trough and front bringing a S’ly change and  tomorrow, reaching the sub-tropics on Wed. Along with residual E/SE swell from the low near the North Island we’ll see a mixed bag of S swell trains from mid week with a general easing trend into the weekend. 

In the short run we’ll see winds shift NW/SW in a variable troughy flow tomorrow morning (should be offshore at most places early) before a front brings a stiff S’ly wind likely just after lunch. A strong new pulse of E swell is due through the morning from an intensification of the low as it approached the North Island. That should arrive mid a’noon, but you’ll have to work around strong S’ly tending S/SE winds. Sets to 4-5ft+, are on offer if you can get out of the wind. 

S’ly winds Wed, with just a brief window of SW winds north of the Harbour before winds clock around S/SE-SE, although they’ll be easing during the day. Tuesdays E’ly pulse will still be offering some 3-4ft surf under an easing trend with a more dominant S swell regime to 3-5ft, bigger 4-6ft on the Hunter offering plenty of messy size at S exposed breaks. That S swell spike will be showing signs of easing late in the day. 

Nice little mixed bag of swells Thurs, with a light/lingering S’ly flow on offer. We should see a fairly widespread SW breeze inshore for the morning before winds clock around light S-SE through the day. Residual E’ly swells will still be throwing up the occ. 2-3ft wave, with easing S swells and some long period S wrapping in from the deep parent low. All told, S facing beaches won’t be under 3ft, 4ft on the Hunter but quality will still be a little mixed under the S’ly flow.

The easing trend continues into Fri with small leftover swells from the S and E in the 2ft range, dropping through the day. Conditions should be clean early under light land breezes before winds tend to light seabreezes. There’ll be a grovel on offer.

This weekend (Oct 28-29)

Not much swell energy expected this weekend. Just a small blend of swells for Sat under a NE flow, likely best for s grovel early under light NW winds. We may see some small NE windswell get generated in the a’noon.

Better odds for a surfable NE windswell on Sun under a similar mod/fresh N-N/NE flow. Keep expectations low but we may see some 2-3ft NE windswell by Sun a’noon. One caveat is EC suggesting a small trough may form off the NSW Hunter coast Sun, with a larger NE swell possible, even tending more E’ly depending on the infeed into the trough. There’s poor run to run consistency and GFS is not interested so we’ll flag it for now and see how it looks on Wed. 

Next week (Oct 30 onwards)

Looks like a fairly quiet and more typical Spring week ahead next week. Unless that little trough of low pressure EC is interested in winds up, we’re mostly looking at high pressure in the Tasman and NE winds, with some small NE winds swell on the menu for at least the first half of next week.

A zonal storm track under the continent may send up a few traces of S swell wrap but anything arriving looks to be negligible.

Just for the record the area around the Solomon Islands is still showing signs of convective activity so we’ll keep an eye on that for ny signs of developing tropical depressions or even another TC although the odds would be extremely low. 

Check back Wed and we’ll see how it’s looking.