Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast (Mon 20th Jan)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 20th Jan)

Best Days: Friday morning, Saturday morning

Recap

A small NE windswell came in at 1-2ft across north-east facing beaches on Saturday, with a jump in size seen during the late afternoon as NE winds freshened. The swell backed off into Sunday from a small 1-2ft as a weak S'ly change moved through and increased during the day.

This morning we're back to tiny waves with an inconsistent S/SE groundswell and light variable wind. We may see a late pulse of E/NE groundswell across open beaches, but the S/SE groundswell will be bigger with 2ft sets at south facing beaches.

This week (Jan 21 -24)

A moderate but inconsistent pulse of E/NE groundswell is expected to arrive later today and peak tomorrow across open beaches, generated by Tropical Cyclone June which formed in the Coral Sea late last week.

TC June drifted south into an established trade-flow over the weekend, but continued quickly south-southeast towards New Zealand while weakening.

In saying this a fetch of gale to severe-gale E/NE winds were aimed towards us, generating a long-range and inconsistent E/NE groundswell that should peak through tomorrow morning at a very inconsistent 3ft+ across open beaches.

Unfortunately winds will be onshore from the E tending E/NE creating poor conditions.

The swell will ease slowly through Wednesday, but again winds look poor with a freshening S/SE'ly associated with a weak surface trough pushing up the coast.

This trough will be associated with a strong mid-latitude low pushing across Tassie, but a fetch of strong to gale-force S/SW winds will be aimed through our southern swell window, generating a good pulse of S'ly groundswell for Thursday, peaking during the afternoon 3ft to occasionally 4ft across south facing beaches.

Winds will remain poor though and moderate to fresh from the E/SE tending E/NE. Friday morning should be cleaner with an early N/NE'ly ahead of fresh NE sea breezes.

This weekend onwards (Jan 25 onwards)

There's plenty of swell on the cards for this weekend with a fun NE windswell Saturday morning expected to give way to a strong S'ly change and late increasing in S'ly swell that will peak Sunday out of the S/SE. Unfortunately winds will remain poor and fresh from the S/SE through Sunday.

Longer term, the surface trough linked to the weekend's strong S'ly change and poor winds will move off slowly to the north-east but broaden in scope, generating some fun E/SE swell into next week. We'll keep an eye on this though and provide another update on Wednesday.