Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 6th January)

Best Days: Tuesday and Wednesday in protected spots, Thursday morning, Friday, Saturday morning

Recap

A fresh pulse of S'ly windswell filled in Saturday afternoon in the wake of a change but conditions were average with a S'ly tending E'ly wind.

Sunday offered better waves with a stronger S'ly swell to 2-3ft across south facing beaches as a moderate NE'ly strengthened from the NE during the day. This kicked up a late increase in NE windswell that reached 3-4ft across north-east facing beaches.

An overnight W'ly change kicked the swell in the guts though leaving small and inconsistent 1-2ft waves across open beaches but with perfectly clean conditions.

This week (Jan 7-10)

We've got a strong pulse of S'ly swell expected across the coast tomorrow as a deep and powerful mid-latitude low moves across Tasmania today and aims a fetch of SW tending S/SW gales through our swell window.

A medium sized S'ly groundswell should result that's expected to peak at 3-5ft across south facing beaches during the day, although conditions will be poor with a fresh S'ly tending S/SE breeze.

As the low moves off to the east during tomorrow a fetch of strong to gale-force S'ly winds will continue to be aimed towards us keeping medium levels of S'ly swell hitting south facing beaches into Tuesday ahead of a drop through Wednesday as the swell swings more S/SE.

Unfortunately winds will remain less than ideal, and from the S'th tending S/SE Wednesday, while Thursday is looking OK with a variable breeze ahead of E'ly sea breezes.

Into the end of the week the swell will continue to drop but south facing beaches will be good with a light offshore W/NW'ly.

This weekend onwards (Jan 11 - 12)

There's nothing major on the cards for the weekend besides easing levels of S/SE swell with favourable winds Saturday and onshore winds Sunday.

Longer term we're likely to see small and weak levels of E/NE trade-swell through next week but we'll review this Wednesday.