Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri 21st Mar)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Tiny weak surf this weekend, outside chance for a small flukey S swell late Sat/Sun
• Small start for next week
• Looks like some flukey S-S/SE swell pulses showing - later Mon, Tues and into Wed- offering some fun at S facing beaches under light winds
• Chance of a more solid E swell next weekend if trough moves down from the sub-tropics

Recap

Bits and pieces of small NE windswell were in the water yesterday and continuing into today- hovering around the 2ft mark. Long period S swell energy did make landfall offering up some 2ft sets at S swell magnets, ,mostly in the a’noon -topping out on the Hunter with some 3ft waves. That swell is barely there this morning apart from a very occ. 2ft wave at S swell magnets. All in all , a pretty low energy surf environment with most beaches offering a small grovel wave. Conditions are clean-ish this morning under a light NW flow with winds expected to swirl around through W-NW to N before trending to light/variable seabreezes. 

Enough NE windswell leftover for a grovel

This weekend (Mar 22 - 23)

No great change to the weekend forecast, which is looking very light on for swell energy. Very slack pressure gradients in the Tasman as a decaying trough and front move slowly north through Sat bringing a weak SW-S flow through the morning , tending light SE in the a’noon. Not much swell to go with those S’ly winds. Small leftovers to 1 occ. 2ft, mostly from the E/NE. As Ben mentioned on Wed a poorly aligned low zipping across the Tasman may supply some flukey S swell Sat PM but nothing more than 2ft is expected (if that) and with S’ly quarter winds it’ll be a tough ask to find a S swell magnet making any sense of it.

Not much better for Sun with more small, weak surf in the 1 occ. 2ft range and light SW winds early, tending light/mod SE during the day as a weak ridge builds along the NSW Coast. Winds should stay light enough for a surf most of the day if you have a particularly good small wave bank to utilise. Otherwise, good day for mowing the lawn.

Next week (Mar 24 onwards)

Quiet start to the week with the small, weak surf of the weekend extending into Mon under very light winds. We may see some long period S swell show later in the day at S swell magnets but Tues looks a better bet. 

High pressure will be in the Tasman, with weak, troughy areas along the NSW Coast which should keep winds light at least through mid week with morning land breezes tending to weak E’ly breezes. 

Tues offers some potential with models picking up some long period S/SE groundswell generated by a slow moving polar low around the edge of the Antarctic ice shelf in the vicinity of the Ross Sea. These swells can often over perform in SENSW but it’s unlikely to offer more than the occ. 3-4ft set ie nothing requiring more than a standard shortboard. Other traces of long period S swell from a zonal low passing under the Tasman over the weekend offer some 2-3ft sets. Definitely worth a squizz at S facing beaches and reefs from lunch-time onwards Tues under light winds. 

S swell from frontal sources holds in the 2-3ft range Wed along with easing S/SE swell. There should be enough energy to get S facing beaches humming under light winds and a’noon E’ly to E/SE’ly breezes.

For the second half of next week we’ll be looking mostly to the E. The high pressure cell generates a respectable trade fetch through the Coral Sea with the southern extent nosing into the Northern Tasman. Under its own steam that will see small E/NE swell start to filter down later next week- we should see a slight increase Thurs more noticeable Fri. Still a chance a front passing through the Tasman mid week may spin up in the Tasman but later model runs have gone right off the idea so we’ll just park it for now and see how it looks come Mon.

Of more interest are modelled outcomes suggesting a trough forming off the QLD, or even NENSW coast which increases wind speeds and more directly aims the fetch at either QLD (EC) or NSW (GFS). Still too early to have any confidence in specifics due to the model divergence but we’ll keep eyes on it over the weekend and see how’s it looking Mon. 

The southern storm track looks to stay reasonably active into this period as well, suggesting more small/moderate S swell pulses into the medium term. 

We’ll see how all that looks on Mon.

Until then, have a great weekend!