Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast (Fri 27th Dec)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 27th December)

Best Days: Sunday morning, Monday morning for keen surfers, early Tuesday

Recap

A weak surface trough deepened directly east of us yesterday, kicking up a moderate increase in E/SE swell that reached 2-3ft during the afternoon across open beaches. Conditions improved as well as fresh morning S'ly winds eased during the day.

Today the swell was down a notch out of the E/SE, coming in at 2ft to nearly 3ft across open beaches but conditions were great with a light offshore breeze. The swell should ease further during the day as winds go moderate onshore from the E/NE.

This weekend onwards (Dec 28 - 29)

Today's E'ly swell will continue to fade tomorrow as the trough weakens and pushes ease through today leaving inconsistent 1-2ft sets across open beaches during the morning.

Come Sunday morning a small pulse of NE windswell is expected to 1-2ft across north-east facing beaches and conditions will be clean with a NW breeze ahead of a strong S'ly change.

A rapid increase in S'ly swell will build with this change due to a strong cold front pushing up the Southern NSW Coast. This should see south facing beaches increasing to a stormy 3-5ft, with 2-3ft waves at open locations.

Next week onwards (Dec 30 onwards)

The cold front linked to Sunday afternoon's pulse of S'ly swell will continue pushing north and out of our swell window overnight resulting in a steady drop in size as the swell swings more S/SE into Monday.

South facing beaches should ease from 3-4ft but winds will linger from the S'th keeping south facing beaches below par.

Tuesday will be much better and a secondary pulse of S'ly groundswell should fill in under light NW winds.

There's nothing major for the second half of next week besides small levels of NE windswell.

Longer term, a tropical cyclone is expected to form off the NW WA coast over the coming days named Christine. During the middle of next week it's expected to weaken and then be pushed east across the country, with the remnants of Christine likely to move into the Tasman Sea next weekend. As it does so we could see it merging with a cold front resulting in a strong cold outbreak in the Southern Tasman Sea, but we'll keep a close eye on this scenario.