Sydney Hunter Illawarra Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri July 4th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing S/SE and E swells Sat with morning offshore winds and a’noon N’ly breezes
• Small leftovers Sun with NW-N winds, swinging NW in the a’noon
• Tiny Mon 
• Minor flush of S swell Tues AM with offshore winds
• Tiny again Wed/Thurs
• S swell pulse likely Fri PM, extending into Sat
• Winter pattern ahead with W’ly winds and small S swells
• Still watching the tropics for signs of instability- nothing concrete

Recap

E’ly swells eased through yesterday into the 5-6ft range with S swell of equivalent sized mixed in. Fresh W-SW winds eased through the day. A strong rebuild in S swell to 6-8ft was reported at some S exposed coastlines through the a’noon. We’re on the wane now with size to 4-6ft at S exposed breaks, smaller elsewhere and cleanish conditions (S facing beaches still showing some residual lump and bump) with morning offshore winds expected to ease right back and tend to variable breezes this a’noon. 

Easing, but still plenty of energy in the ocean this morning

This weekend (Jul 5-6)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. The complex, coastal low is now dissipating and drifting towards New Zealand while high pressure drifts NE to sit over sub-tropical NSW/SEQLD tomorrow before entering the Tasman on Sunday with a broad low pushing across the interior of Victoria and NSW behind it.

Winds look good for tomorrow with light W-W/NW breezes, tending NW then N’ly in the a’noon at mod paces.

Swell will be on an easing trend tomorrow but lots of fun surf through the morning in the 3-4ft range with occ. 5ft sets at S swell magnets. By the a’noon we’ll be in the sub 3ft range, softening even further by close of play. S/SE swell will be dominant but there should be just enough leftover E’ly energy to generate some tasty a-frames at open beaches with a slight S’ly aspect. 

Not much leftover for Sun with 2ft surf at the swell magnets (occ. 3ft set possible at the Hunter and other S swell havens) with size trending down to 1-2ft through the day. Early W-NW winds tend N’ly then veer around NW again in the a’noon as the inland low approaches from the W. 

Surf will continue trending down into the weekend with morning light land breezes from the W-W/NW tending to N/NE-NE breezes Sat, more NW Sun as a decaying low and front approach from the W.

Still some fun to be had Sat with size in the 3ft range at S exposed breaks, dropping through the day.

By Sun we’ll be looking at a minor blend of S/SE swell, small background E swell and minor S wrap all offering up some 2ft sets at open beaches. 

Next week (July 7 onwards)

Still looking quiet for most of next week. Expect tiny surf Mon as the inland low enters the Tasman, driving a W’ly tending SW flow across the region. 

Compared to Wed’s notes that return SW flow now looks capable of generating a minor flush of local S swell into Tues morning. Not much in it: 2ft max at S swell magnets but conditions should be clean as the low moves East and winds swing W through NW again in advance of another front sweeping up over the SE of the continent. 

Back to tiny through Tues a’noon and into Wed with a synoptic W’ly flow that will veer W/nW-NW at times. No swell to speak of through that period and into Thurs as well. 

By late Thurs we should see winds swing W/SW-SW and freshen as a front and low enter the Tasman. Models are divergent on this wth EC suggesting a more robust system capable of generating quite sizey S swell Fri into the weekend (4-6ft at S exposed breaks). 

GFS has a more modest system progged with lesser size over the same period. 

We’ll flag it for for now and dial in size and timing when we come back Mon.

Further ahead, typical winter pattern with high pressure up over the continent and fronts and lows sweeping up from the southern ocean. At present most of these systems look to favour the southern states. We’ll certainly see S swells of some dimension going forwards with nothing major under current modelling. 

Still some indications of troughiness in the Coral Sea on the long range charts and while it would be unusual to see anything develop there as we move into the second of July, warm SST’s mean anything can happen.

We’ll see how it looks on Mon. Until then have a great weekend!