Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri August 9th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Slighty better (still small) S/SE swell pulse Sat with light winds tending S-S/SE
• Light winds tending onshore Sun with small leftovers
• Small surf to start next week with onshore winds
• Summer style E/NE swells from Tues next week as broad E’ly flow establishes in Coral Sea and extends into Northern Tasman
• Some small long range E swell in the mix Tues/Wed
• NE winds tending SW-S on Wed
• Uncertain outlook for later next week and the weekend due to model variance- likely some type of S swell. Check back Mon for latest revisions.

Recap

Small clean surf to 2ft with a little bump in S swell to 2-3ft in the a’noon under light winds which tended N’ly and freshened in the a’noon. Thats lefts some minor NE windswell this morning in the 1 occ. 2ft range under light W/NW breezes which are expected to tend light N’ly during the day.

Just some dribbly little NE windswell on offer this morning

This weekend (Aug 10-11)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. Sat still looks the best of it with a minor pulse of S-S/SE swell offering up a few 2 occ. 3ft sets at S facing beaches. Early winds should be OK, light W-W/SW but they will clock around SW-S before ending up light S/SE-SE. That’ll ruffle up S facing beaches but winds should stay light enough for those spots to remain surfable if you aren’t too fussy about wave quality.

That pulse fades out for Sun leaving a marginal blend of S/SE and E swells offering up the odd 2 footer (maybe a clean 3ft set first thing). Winds should remain light for the early with a morning land breeze before winds clock around SE to E through the day, at light paces. Again, there should be a small, rideable wave on offer at open beaches.

Next week (Aug 12 onwards)

No change expected to the broad pattern next week with strong high pressure moving into the Tasman and a broad, deep E’ly fetch developing through the Coral Sea, with an embedded trough. Most of the swell energy from this system will be aimed at sub-tropical targets, but we will see E/NE tending NE swell start to filter down into Central/Southern NSW as the week progresses.

Small on Mon with a light onshore flow, tending NE in the a’noon. Probably just enough surf for a grovel in the 1-2ft range.

By Tues we should see more action with E/NE swells building into the 2 occ. 3ft range through the day. Nothing serious but fun under a light NE flow with good odds for a morning land breeze. Models are also suggesting some long range  small E’ly swell from the remnants of last week Tasman Low as it drifted off into the Pacific while intensifying. Hard to see more than the odd 2ft set but if you do spy a rogue 3ft set with a longer line that is likely the source. Long range E swell extends into Wed at low levels.

More proximate E/NE swell should solidify a notch into the 3ft range through Wed into Thurs with a few bigger sets possible Wed a’noon. A trough looks to bring a SW-S change Wed. 

Similar winds Thurs although there is some potential for the trough to deepen and winds to increase from the S-S/SE, even whipping up some local windswell. We’ll see how that looks on Mon. Size should hold into Thurs morning with some local NE swell from an infeed into the trough in the mix. 

Tricky wind outlook but there could be some fun windows around if the wind plays ball.

Further ahead, there is a frontal/low system traversing the far southern Tasman Wed/Thurs week (see below), with major models at variance over the strength of the system.

The more bullish GFS outlook would suggest a small pulse of S groundswell later Fri into Sat. 

EC then suggests a strong low pressure system moving into the southern swell window over the weekend with some strong S’ly groundswell expected up the pipe.

This is at odds with the GFS resolution which maintains a blocking high through the Tasman and a potential fetch off the North Island.

Low confidence with that level of model disagreement so we’ll flag these potential scenarios  for now and see how they look when we come back Mon.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!