Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast (Mon 16th Dec)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 16th December)

Best Days: Saturday morning

Recap

A tiny NE windswell came in at 1-2ft across north-east facing beaches Saturday morning under fresh S'ly winds, and these winds kicked up an afternoon increase in weak S'ly windswell.

The windswell eased back through Sunday with lighter offshore winds, but there were no real quality waves around.

Today tiny surf has continued across open beaches with a morning onshore that should persist all day.

This week and weekend (Dec 16 - 22)

Unfortunately there's nothing major on the cards for this week until Friday. Tiny and distant levels of background E'ly trade-swell should provide 1ft+ sets across open beaches over the coming days with light winds each morning.

Heading into Friday and the weekend though, a northerly ridge strengthening down the Southern NSW Coast will aim a fetch of strengthening NE winds into us (pictured right).

This should kick up a building NE windswell Friday that should peak through Saturday morning to 2ft+ across north-east facing beaches.

The swell should ease slowly during the day as a surface trough moves offshore with light morning NW winds giving way to E'ly sea breezes.

A stronger S/SE change overnight Saturday should bring with it a junky increase in S/SE swell Sunday to 2ft+ across south facing beaches but with lingering SE winds.

Longer term (Dec 23 onwards)

The surface trough responsible for the weekend's change will linger off our coast into next week and aim a fetch of strong E'ly winds towards us. This should kick up moderate levels of E'ly swell but with associated E'ly winds. Check back here on Wednesday for an update on this though.