Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri Sep 6th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Minor background E swells hold a faint signal into the weekend
• Not much for the weekend, small background E swells with some minor NE windswell Sat
• Light winds Sat AM before a S-SE change
• Winds tending more W’ly on Sun
• Small S swell Tues next week
• Small NE windswells possible Wed PM and into Thurs AM
• Large S swell possible next weekend as trough deepens into low in the Tasman
• Possible sizey S swells persisting into week 16/9- check back Mon for latest updates

Recap

Small leftovers from the S-S/SE yesterday and some background E swell offered up the occ. 2footer with clean morning conditions before N'lies kicked up and freshened in the a'noon. A small grovel blend of N'ly windswell and E swell to 1 occ.2ft on offer this mornign with NW winds shifting N'ly during the day. 

A grovel on offer this morning

This weekend (Sep7-8)

No great changes to the weekend f/cast. An approaching trough and front will provide a wind change and a high in the Tasman will exit stage right.

The trough brings a S-SE change which looks to arrive south of Sydney in the pre-dawn hrs, slowing down and reaching Sydney early morning. There should be a brief window in Sydney of offshore W-W/NW winds, extending longer on the Central Coast and Hunter, with all areas blown out by late morning. So if you want a surf, get in early. Not much swell to work with- just a small grovel blend of minor NE windswell and the occ. set from the E, mostly in the 1-1.5ft range with a 2ft set once a while. 

Similar for Sun surf-wise, or even slower as NE windswell drops out leaving a small signal of 1 occ. 2ft from the E. Winds do look nicer though as the trough clears the coast and a front brings a more W’ly flow we should see widespread groomed conditions. Nice for logs and learners wanting to get out the back.

Next week (Sep9 onwards)

Offshore winds continue into Mon as the front passes into the Tasman, likely ending up as weak seabreezes in the a’noon. More small grovel surf on offer through Mon with the occ. 1.5-2ft set likely from the E.

A front passing under Tasmania Sun/Mon (see below) does offer some grounds for optimism with respect to wave models. We’ll see some small S swell Tues, with size hopefully getting up into the 3ft range east S facing beaches, possible 4ft sets on the Hunter and other magnets. Light morning offshore winds should tend to mod NE breezes in the a’noon.

That pulse then winds back quickly through Wed with increasing N/NE winds feeding into an approaching trough whipping up some NE windswell to 2ft in the a’noon.

Later next week we should see a S-SE change from an approaching trough- possibly as early as Thurs a’noon.

Models are still struggling to resolve this trough but there are reasonable grounds to suggest the trough may deepen and form a surface low in the Tasman late next week. Under this scenario we’ll see a sizey S swell develop as the low deepens, likely Sat.
EC has more bullish outlook with the low remaining slow moving in the Tasman, reinforced by approaching fronts and buttressed by a strong high moving south of the Bight. That would give us days of sizey S swell through the weekend and into early week beginning 16/9.
GFS has a more mobile pattern with S swell dropping off quite rapidly next weekend and into the following week.

At least it gives us something to look forwards to.

We’ll take a fresh look at it on Mon.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!