Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri Nov 22)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr) 

• Small NE windswells this weekend, bigger Sun with a mod/fresh N-NE flow
• Flukey long period S swell Sun
• Increasing NE windswells Mon, peaking Tues and persisting at low levels most of next week
• Possible E/NE swell filling Wed/Thurs- low confidence, check back Mon
• N-NE winds now persist most of next week

Recap

Another day of small, blended swell yesterday to 2-3ft with light morning breezes offering clean conditions before a’noon E-NE seabreezes. Similar today, with E swell and some S swell building in the mix offering 2-3ft surf, bigger 3-4ft on the Hunter. Conditions are a bit lumpy under a light N’ly flow, expected to tend mod NE through the day. Nothing amazing, but definitely some fun(ish) waves on offer.

A few lines at S facing beaches

This weekend (Nov 23-24)

No great change to the weekend outlook. Slow moving high pressure is drifting in the Central Tasman with a classic summer wind signature of NE winds along temperate NSW, tending more SE-E in the sub-tropics. 

So we’ll see N/NE winds both days, with a strengthening trend through Sun. Winds should be light N/NW-N for a brief period Sat and Sun morning but don’t expect perfectly clean conditions unless you are at true S facing beaches or reefs. 

Not much surf for Sat, just a small signal of leftover S swell offering up an occ. 2ft wave at S facing breaks with a possible just rideable signal of NE windswell to 1-2ft in the a’noon. Late in the day we may see the leading edge of some S’ly groundswell showing some 2 occ. 3ft sets at S facing beaches. Expect this to be a flukey swell with inconsistent coverage.

S swell in the water for Sun morning offers 2-3ft sets at select S swell magnets. Swell periods in the 16+ second band do offer some chance of outliers at deepwater adjacent reefs but for the most part expect a flukey swell with lots of no shows. With freshening NE winds in the a’noon (gusts to 30kts) we’ll see some more NE windswell, up in the 2 occ. 3ft range for those not scared of a bit of wind.

Next week (Nov25 onwards)

High pressure is still in the Tasman early next week, slowly drifting towards the North Island, with a N-S angled trough approaching from the interior. A trough of low pressure centred around New Caledonia looks to amplify the trade-wind flow in that area, moving southwards early next week, although with low confidence as to it’s strength as it does so.

Meanwhile, the N-NE flow along the NSW coast looks to remain entrenched with the trough and reinforcing high resetting that flow. 

We’re looking at a week of N-N/NE winds under current modelling with NE windswells hanging around in the 2-3ft range (with a few ups and downs). 

Depending on how the trough of low pressure drifting down from New Caledonia behaves we may see some better quality E/NE swell build in over that, through Wed/Thurs. 

EC has the more bullish outlook suggesting some 3ft surf (possible 4ft sets) while GFS has the system weakening with only a few 2 occ. 3ft sets.

We’ll see how it looks over the weekend and report back Mon.

Until then, have a great weekend!