Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast (Wed 29th Jan)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 29th)

Best Days: No great days

Recap

Yesterday started off tiny with a mix of NE windswell and leftover S/SE swell, but a freshening NE'ly kicked up some fun NE windswell into the late afternoon.

This windswell peaked this morning a little stronger than expected with north-east facing beaches coming in at 2-3ft+. A drop in size has since been seen and early N'ly winds are now increasing from the NE.

This week (Jan 30 - 31)

Peaky levels of NE windswell should persist into the end of the week, but not above the size seen this morning with the northerly ridge expected to weaken gradually into the end of the week and remain week into the weekend.

Conditions will be best early morning with lighter N'ly winds that should freshen from the NE each afternoon.

This weekend onwards (Fed 1 onwards)

Small to tiny levels of NE windswell should continue through the weekend but to no major size.

Heading into next week a long-range pulse of inconsistent E/NE groundswell is expected to arrive Monday and peak during the afternoon an inconsistent 2ft+ across open beaches (earlier and slightly above model forecast as we've unfortunately missed an update). This will be generated by a tropical low deepening in the trade-flow just north-east of New Zealand during the end of this week in our far swell window (pictured right).

Longer term we may see another stronger tropical low deepen in the easterly trade-flow later next week, generating a better pulse of E'ly groundswell the following weekend, but the confidence regarding this is still low.