Sydney Hunter Illawarra Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed Jun 12th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• S'ly wind change Wed a'noon and a rapid increase in S'ly swell late in the day
• Large, windy S'ly swell Thurs, easing a touch Fri AM 
• Plenty of size from the S Sat with S tending SW winds
• Large again Sun, with a late kick in really solid S/SE swell and SW tending W/SW winds
• Large and clean Mon with W tending SW winds
• Large again Tues but with a slow easing trend and offshore winds
• Slowly easing Wed into Thurs with offshore winds

Recap

Small S swells yesterday offered up a few fun waves in the 2ft range at S exposed breaks, a notch bigger 3ft at more S facing coastlines on the Hunter with generally light winds. We’re on the cusp of a major S’ly swell series today but before it arrives we have bottomed out with tiny 1-2ft surf this morning under pre-frontal NW winds which started off light. We’ll see strong SW tending S’ly winds develop this a’noon, possibly with gale force gusts and a late kick in new S swell arriving with the wind.

Lovely calm morning with some leftover S swell before the onslaught today

This week (Jun 12 - 14)

As Ben mentioned in Monday’s notes we have a favourably positioned node of the Long Wave Trough ready to steer a strong cold front well into sub-tropical latitudes in the Tasman and Southern Coral Seas. Following that a secondary front coalesces with the primary front to form a complex Tasman low which is expected to occupy the Tasman for a meaningful period of time, even retrograding back towards the East Coast over the weekend. The result will be multiple swell pulses from the S to S/SE (some very significant) right through until mid next week. Just as a caveat there is still a bit of model variance from run to run so we’ll continue to expect some more revision/fine-tuning as we get closer to the event.

Let’s break it down.

The short run looks locked in with a  proximate fetch of strong winds to low end gales generating an initial surge in close range S swell. That should see a raw signal of S swell to 6-8ft with bigger 10ft surf across more exposed S facing coastlines. Sheltered spots will be significantly smaller but morning SW or even W/SW winds across some areas like the Northern Beaches may offer some semi-sheltered options picking up more of the size. SW tending S/SW-S winds should start to moderate through the a’noon as the initial frontal surge moves away. Better quality swell trains from the tail of the fetch moving NE into the Tasman past Tasmania may show through the a’noon as the initial blast of S swell starts to show signs of easing. 

Friday looks to be a valley after the peak on Thursday passes. A mix of shorter range and better quality S swells will see energy in the 3-5ft range with S exposures still in the 6ft+ range. Pressure gradients should relax enough for morning SW breezes, although a bit of S’ly sea state will still be across exposed breaks. More sheltered breaks will be significantly smaller. We should see a slight easing trend in the a’noon but heaps of size and energy is still expected, even if you have to sacrifice some to find cleaner conditions. 

This weekend (June 15 - 16)

The secondary front Ben mentioned on Monday looks to send reinforcing S swell pulse arriving o/night Friday into Saturday. That should see a boost in S swell into Saturday morning, back up to the 5-6ft range at S exposed breaks. We may need to adjust timing for this on Friday but there’ll be plenty of swell to work with. Winds look to freshen from the S tending S/SW-SW as the frontal systems form a low which is expected to retrograde back to the SE of the continent through Saturday. It’ll be a windy day requiring some wind protection with a few standout spots.

Gales wrapping around the SW flank of the low as it retrogrades back towards the Central Tasman over the weekend (see below) are expected to supply a major pulse of S-S/SE energy. We may see this show later Sunday, although Monday now looks to the be the peak of the swell. 

Still, plenty of size Sunday, likely again up in the 6-8ft range at S exposures. Winds look to tend more SW-W/SW as the low sits in the Central Tasman. That could see more open exposures and reefs start to really fire through Sunday, especially later in the day as strong 8-10ft S-S/SE groundswell fills in. Proximity equals size and consistency so it’ll likely be experts only across a large swathe of the f/cast region later Sunday.

Next week (June 17 onwards)

Monday looks big. How big..? Current modelling suggests size in the 10-12ft range and with direction more S/SE we’ll see a broader spread of large surf compared to a straight S direction. Winds from the W-W/SW tend SW through the day so a large range of spots should be holding clean, large surf. Lots of heavy water so experts only. 

The low is expected to occupy the Tasman for the better part of next week, slowly dissipating through this time frame. If this holds we’re looking at very slow easing trend of large surf through next week with offshore winds for the most part. 

Pencil in large 8ft+ surf Tues, easing back to 4-6ft Wed and 3-4ft Thurs.

We’ll use those for ballpark figures and adjust on Fri.

Lots of surf at a minimum, with good conditions.

Check back Fri for a last look at the weekend and we’ll see how next week is shaping up.

Seeya then.