Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast (Wed 27th Nov)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 27th November)

Best Days: Thusday morning, early Friday for small waves, Sunday morning, Monday

Recap

A medium to large but relatively weak S/SE swell peaked yesterday morning coming in at 4-6ft across south swell magnets and a smaller 3-4ft at open beaches around Sydney, with larger surf on the Hunter and smaller waves around Wollongong. S/SW winds favoured semi-protected spots most of the day, with a touch more S/SE in the wind through the afternoon.

Today a stronger SE groundswell pulse is filling in across the Southern NSW coast and we should see most spots picking up inconsistent 3-5ft waves through this afternoon as the swell peaks. Straight offshores created great surf this morning, while E/NE sea breezes shouldn't do too much damage this afternoon.

This week (Nov 27-29)

Today's pulse of SE groundswell was generated by a fetch of SE gales projecting towards us from the tip of New Zealand's South Island on Monday evening and Tuesday morning. This swell will peak mid-late afternoon and from here on we should see a slow drop in size as a result of the low in the Tasman Sea decaying away.

In saying this, even this morning a fetch of strong SE winds were still being aimed at us (pictured right) and this should keep 3ft+ sets hitting open beaches tomorrow morning before dropping into the afternoon and further from 1-2ft or so Friday morning (with a similar sized and easing NE windswell).

Conditions will be clean early tomorrow with a light NW'ly but this will quickly succumb to fresh NE sea breezes. Friday will then see a shallow S/SE change moving through with early S/SW winds around dawn.

This weekend (Nov 30 onwards)

There'll be plenty of swell over the weekend out of the south as a couple of strong cold fronts push up from below Tassie and into the Tasman Sea.

An initial change on Friday will kick up a moderate but weak short-range S'ly swell Saturday, but come Sunday a stronger S'ly groundswell is due off the fetch extending all the way down the East Coast past Tassie (pictured right). This should peak during the day to 2-3ft at open beaches and 3-5ft at south facing locations.

Winds Saturday will be poor and from the S/SW to SE, but Sunday looks better with a morning SW'ly ahead of E'ly sea breezes.

Longer term, and another good pulse of S'ly groundswell is due Monday afternoon but we'll look at this again Friday.