Sydney Hunter Illawarra Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday April 3rd)

Best Days: Selected spots Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Monday morning, Tuesday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small-moderate sized mix of S'ly swells building tomorrow, easing Fri
• Moderate S/SE winds, strengthening tomorrow
• Rapid increase in stormy E'ly swell Fri with fresh-strong E/SE tending stronger E/NE winds
• Large E/NE swell Sat with strong, pre-dawn NE winds, easing and tending N, then fresher N/NE-NE into the PM (check back Fri for specifics)
• Moderate sized, easing E/NE swell Sun with moderate N/NW winds ahead of NE sea breezes
• Smaller Mon with W/SW tending NE winds

Recap

A small mix of peaky NE windswell and S swell faded through yesterday with early average conditions, improving slowly through the day and more so late, while becoming tiny.

This morning was crisp and clean but tiny, while a small pulse of weak S’ly swell has come up this afternoon.

This week and next (Apr 4 - 12)

The end of this week is looking poor as a deepening coastal trough to our north starts to slide south, down the East Coast.

This will bring strengthening S/SE winds through tomorrow (moderate in the morning) along with a small mid-period S’ly swell. The Northern Beaches might see early S/SW winds but it won’t be worth worrying about.

Some slightly stronger S’ly groundswell is due into the afternoon, generated by S’ly gales around a low entering the southern Tasman Sea last night, but with the strengthening onshore winds, there’ll be nowhere to surf.

Into Friday, the trough will start to shift further south, swinging winds E/SE while remaining fresh to strong, strengthening late from the E/NE as it continues on its way.

The swell will also build out of the E thanks to strengthening E’ly winds feeding into the trough, with windswelly 2-3ft waves early, due to reach a stormy 4-5ft+ by the close of play.

As the low continues drifting south on the weekend, it will continue to deepen, with stronger bursts of near gale-force E/NE winds due to generate some larger surf on Saturday, likely coming in at 6ft to occasionally 8ft, with larger surf down the South Coast.

We’ve got a slower movement of the system as a whole, with the low pressure centre forming further inland. What this is means is that winds aren’t looking as favourable, likely strong NE pre-dawn Saturday, tending N’ly for a period during the morning and then back to the N/NE-NE into the afternoon. There's still some fluidity in the wind outlook so check back Friday for the latest.

It won’t be until Sunday that winds shift offshore, though only N/NW, favouring selected breaks over others before NE sea breezes kick in.

The swell should be starting to ease as the swell generating fetch continues south, with slowly easing sets from 4-5ft during the morning, (bigger down South) and back from a smaller 3-4ft on Monday.

Conditions look best Monday with a W/SW offshore, giving into afternoon sea breezes.

Looking at the rest of the week, and the E/NE swell will continue to ease slowly, thanks to an extended fetch of strong E/NE winds feeding into the coastal trough, from the Coral Sea.

We’re then looking at an extended run of S’ly swells from late week into next weekend and the following week as a strong node of the Long Wave Trough sets up camp across the southern Tasman Sea. More on this Friday.