"Stay happy and you'll be perfectly fine" - Jack Norris

Little waves about for the keen

Hello Friends,

Well whadya know. There were a few small wave like things around this morning. It’s really not much different from yesterday but there were a few more people in the water at Dee Why and North Narrabeen chasing the occasional knee to waist high set. The Bureau is saying the swell ought to be coming from the east at a metre, but the MHL buoy is showing the direction as closer to SSE. The average and peak period components are both bumping along in the 7-8 second range. I.e., solidly into the wind swell range. Tide’s low at 0930 and it’ll hit the high around 1510.

We have a pretty standard summer setting on the wind forecast (light early, swing NE later and getting up to 15-20kts by this afternoon), so the average wave heights should push up toward the end of the day. With a little luck there should be at least as much tomorrow morning as there was today.

While there’s not much prospect of  a dramatic improvement in our surf prospects immediately, it shouldn’t be quite as wretchedly awful over the next three days or so.  We might have waves into the chest high range on Friday at south spots, but it looks like the wind could be with it, so I’m not hopping up and down with excitement.

However, for the first time in weeks, some of the long range models are showing a brief, but potentially juicy little pulse turning up for us early next week. One really shouldn’t be too excited about it, but it just might be worth taking a strategic position apropos the diary and therefore penciling in a gap in the schedule for Monday arvo or Tuesday morning. If the models have it right, we could pick up some straight south swell into the head high plus range. The usual caveat applies: it’s right out at the limit of the model’s prediction range and is therefore highly conditional. But gee, it’s good to see something like that in the forecast after so many weeks of micro conditions.

Weather Situation

A cold front will reach New South Wales far south coast tonight and then it will move along the central coast during Thursday and weaken. During Friday a deep low pressure system will move south of Tasmania with a weak trough developing across the central Tasman Sea.

Forecast for Wednesday until midnight

Winds: North to northwesterly 5 to 10 knots tending north to northeasterly 10 to 15 knots around midday then increasing to 15 to 20 knots during the afternoon. Seas: Below 1 metre increasing to 1.5 to 2 metres by early evening. Swell: Easterly 1 metre. Isolated thunderstorms this morning, mainly offshore.

Forecast for Thursday

Winds: Northeasterly 10 to 20 knots. Seas: Up to 2 metres. Swell: Easterly 1 metre. Isolated thunderstorms from midday, contracting inshore late in the evening.

Forecast for Friday

Winds: Southerly 10 to 15 knots. Seas: Below 1 metre. Swell: Easterly 1 metre.