Sydney Hunter Illawarra Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri July 18th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• S'ly winds developing Fri, building short range swell later and poss a flukey long range S'ly swell too
• Generally light winds for the weekend with small flukey long range S'ly swells
• Building E’ly swells Sun PM with light winds AM tending S-SE in the PM
• Fun sized E-/NE swells Mon, building a notch Tues with winds from the NW to N/NE
• Good sized E/NE swells continue into Wed and Thurs with winds swinging offshore
• Tricky outlook but likely we will see further surf from the E/NE-NE later next week

Recap

S swells hung in there yesterday with size to 2ft at S exposed breaks, topping out on the Hunter with some 3ft sets. Conditions were clean under light winds all day. Today is seeing small surf in the 2ft range or less with early offshore breezes already tending more S’ly with lump and bump at S facing beaches, becoming more widespread through the day as S’ly winds increase.

This weekend (July 19 - 20)

Just a few tweaks to the weekend f/cast, mainly for local winds which are now looking a little more variable under a troughy pattern.

Offshores are still expected Sat morning with winds likely to swing S for a time before ending up variable. There shouldn’t be too much strength at any point so conditions look clean. 

Not much surf expected though. Traces of both long period S from the distant edge of the swell window and SE from under the South Island are expected to be in the water but set waves are likely to top out around 2ft (at best) and be extremely infrequent. Other than those swell sources, surf will be tiny so keep expectations pegged low.

With a low winding up off the North Coast and reasonably broad infeed through the Northern Tasman we should see a small bump in more E’ly angled swell through Sun. Still tiny in the morning but through the a’noon sets should become more frequent and in the 2ft range. Light morning land breezes will tend light/mod S-SE in the a’noon as a weak high pressure ridge builds across southern/central NSW.

Next week (July 21 onwards)

We’ve got more clarity on the low in the Northern Tasman which slowly drifts towards a central position in the South Pacific slot roughly equidistant between New Caledonia and the North Island. There’s still some model divergence later next week but for now we’ve got reasonable confidence a broad fetch will develop through the Northern Tasman (see below) as high pressure moves into the Tasman and supplies an anchor for the low.

Broad fetch of E'ly winds in Northern Tasman early next week

That should see a few days of quality E tending E/NE swell with Mon building into the 3ft range under light morning land breezes tending to light E-E/NE breezes in the a’noon.

Size builds into the 3-4 ft with occ. 5ft sets on Tues and we’ll see early NW winds freshen from the NE as the high moves out into the Tasman, adding some shorter period NE swell into the mix. 

Wednesday looks like the day as an approaching front shifts winds to the W/NW-W with variable a’noon seabreezes. Size should hold in the 3-4ft range at least- GFS has a slightly more bullish outlook than EC. Under the best case scenario we’re looking at 3-5ft of quality E/NE swell but worst case is still really fun 3 occ. 4ft so pencil in Wed.

Thurs also looks great with similar size surf and winds shifting SW-S as a trough or small low forms off the NSW coast.

That leads to low confidence in the outlook for the rest of the week. 

It’s likely we’ll see some sort of NE-E/NE infeed into the trough/low with more swell from that direction later next week. 

Into next weekend and EC is suggesting a major low pressure centre tracking into Bass Strait and then into the Tasman with a strong W’ly blast followed by some S swell as the low moves into the Tasman.

GFS holds the troughy pattern in the Tasman with possibility of more E/NE-E swell from infeeds into troughs or lows.

Definitely looks like an active period ahead either way so check back Mon and we’ll see how it’s shaping up.

Until then, have a great weekend!