Sydney Hunter Illawarra Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri July 19th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing surf Sat with offshore winds- late small S swell spike probbale
• S swell Sun with offshore wind
• Easing S swells Mon with offshore winds
• Surf likely to go tiny/flat Tues-Fri next week with light winds
• Possible NE windswell next weekend
• Next swell of significance should be from the S late next weekend or early week 29/7

Recap

S swell from Wed’s pulse hung in nicely into Thurs morning with size to 3-5ft across S facing beaches before easing off. Conditions were premium under offshore W’ly winds. A small reinforcing signal this morning is supplying some 3ft surf across S exposed breaks under an offshore flow , expected to tend more NW through the day.

A few nice clean options on the S exposed beachies this morning

This weekend (July 20-21)

Not much change for the weekend f/cast. We’ll see that W’ly flow really strengthen tomorrow as another strong frontal system and cold outbreak sweeps up over the SE of the continent. Fresh to strong W’lies all day, lightest early in the morning will be the story of the day and with downslope effects on the Illawarra it’ll be hard to surf. Not much swell about anyway. Todays small S signal will ebb away leaving 1 occ. 2ft surf at S exposed breaks - possibly the odd bigger set on the Hunter Curve breaks. We may see a late kick in new S swell in the last hr or two of light with some 2 occ. 3ft sets possible at S facing breaks from Sydney northwards but it will be weak and flukey. If it doesn’t show before dark don’t be surprised. 

Much stronger S swell signal for Sunday. A trough of low pressure and front rapidly push into the Tasman as a low rapidly forms. Gales will be short-lived but sufficient to whip up a spike in S swell. Expect undersized 3ft surf in the morning, building to 4-5ft across S facing beaches late morning. Depending on the speed of movement of the fetch we may already see an easing trend in place by late a’noon. W tending W/SW winds all day should ease in speed a notch from mod/fresh to mod by close of play. Sunday looks the last day of significant swell for a while so worth getting a surf in if you can.

Next week (July 22 onwards)

Monday looks like a fun mop up day for leftover S swells under offshore winds. We should see a few 3ft sets on offer through the morning, dropping back to 2ft or so in the a’noon, under premium offshore conditions.

Very, very quiet after that. A large, slow moving high over the Eastern half of the continent will supply settled conditions with light winds before sliding into the Tasman. Morning offshores and light a’noon seabreezes are likely Tues-Thurs and into Fri. Beautiful conditions under bluebird skies.

There’s no real swell sources at all to look out for though at this stage. We may just see enough traces of S swell to stop S facing beaches from going dead flat.

Everywhere else will be lucky to be ankle high- and mostly looking more like the Mediterranean in summer than the Tasman Sea. Get the snorkel and/or fishing gear out.

Our next swell source looks to be next weekend as another front and cold outbreak looms.

We may see some pre-frontal N’ly winds develop in the run-up to that system with sufficient strength too whip up some NE windswell next weekend. Failing that, once the system moves into the Tasman there’s reasonable confidence we’ll see a S swell with GFS, at this early stage, suggesting a much stronger signal than EC. We’ll see how model runs play out over the weekend and report back on Mon with a clearer focus on the long term.

In the meantime , make a deposit in the stoke account this weekend if you can - might have to live on the interest for a while.

Catch you Mon and have a great weekend!