Hello all,

Been meaning to share a few thoughts about the possibility of Wednesday being big in Sydney. The long range models from the likes of Buoyweather.com and Magicseaweed.com have been playing pretty much the same riff on the data that drives the WAMs. Speaking of which, here is WAM for Wednesday…

Will this happen?

As you can see from the colour, the models are predicting 15-20 ft east swell pretty much up and down the east coast. Although I haven’t posted it here, the corresponding period forecast is for a power setting of 10-11 seconds. So, we’re talking significant juice as well as size.

Although the forecasts can never be precise, it would appear that the peak energy is going to happen sometime in the early hours of Wednesday. There’s a high tide around 0100 too, so I reckon there’s a chance for some coastal erosion along the southern end of the Collaroy-Narra stretch.

So, what does the Bureau have to say? Well, here’s the latest call for our region:

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Monday until midnight: Wind: E/SE 8/13 knots, increasing to 15/20 knots in the afternoon. Sea: about 1 metre, rising to 1 to 2 metres. Swell: E/NE 1.5 to 2 metres.
Tuesday: Wind: E/SE 15/20 knots, increasing to 20/30 knots. Sea: 1 to 2 metres, rising to 2 to 3 metres. Swell: E/NE 2 to 2.5 metres.
Wednesday: Wind: E/NE 20/30 knots.

Putting it all together, here’s how the situation currently looks to me. The swell should pick up slightly today in Sydney, but the increase in size should be obvious tomorrow morning. It should keep building through the day (along with the dreaded ESE wind) and be pushing into the 1.5x overhead range at exposed ENE spots by dusk. Overnight it looks as though it’ll add another metre (or even two) and Wednesday morning will start off with low tide and strong onshores at most places. Size, if the models prove correct, should be into 2x overhead – or bigger.

Naturally we’ll be following it around here, so check in from time to time.

ps: in case you missed them, I took a bunch of pics at Gardens yesterday morning.