Hello Friends,

In line with expectations, we have another morning of marginal to flat conditions in Sydney. There’s about a metre of ENE 7 second period wind swell out at sea, but it was too small at Dee Why to attract any punters at around 0700.

To the extent it matters, the wind was light early but it should go NE this afternoon and push up to 20-30 kts ahead of a late, gusty south change. The wind will drop off to 10-15 kts SW by tomorrow morning, so there just might be a little bump around the place if we’re lucky.

Looking ahead, the swell models are still pointing at a small but very long period south pulse late Weds into Thursday. The wind outlook isn’t too flash, but maybe we’ll get lucky…

Have yourself a great Monday!

Weather Situation
A stationary high pressure system over the northern Tasman Sea extends a ridge into northern New South Wales. This high pressure ridge is weakening ahead of a cold front that is currently situated to the west of Tasmania. This front is forecast to sweep across southeast Australia during Monday and Tuesday, bringing a southerly change to most of the New South Wales coast before it weakens into a trough over the north. Following this, the next high is forecast to move from the Bight to the southern Tasman Sea mid-week, establishing an onshore airstream.
Forecast for Monday until midnight
Winds
Northerly 10 to 20 knots tending north to northeasterly 15 to 25 knots during the afternoon and to 20 to 30 knots by early evening. Late gusty southerly change 25 to 30 knots.
Seas
1 to 1.5 metres increasing to 2 metres by early evening then increasing to 3 metres later in the evening.
Swell
Northeasterly 1 metre.
Tuesday 25 October
Winds
South to southwesterly 20 to 30 knots decreasing to 10 to 20 knots around dawn then becoming southeast to southwesterly 10 to 15 knots during the afternoon. Inshore sea breezes.
Seas
Up to 3 metres decreasing below 1.5 metres around dawn.
Swell
Easterly 1 metre tending southeasterly about 2 metres from the late morning.
Wednesday 26 October
Winds
Southeasterly 15 to 20 knots.
Seas
Up to 1.5 metres.
Swell
Southeasterly about 2 metres.

Hello Friends,

Can’t see much to be excited about for surfers at Dee Why this morning. Admittedly, it’s not necessarily the first spot you’d look for waves when the energy is coming from the ENE at a feeble 7 second interval. But, I don’t reckon it’ll be too fabulous anywhere else either. I couldn’t see anyone in the water when I climbed aloft to the RealSurf crow’s nest for a squiz at the new day. Tide was coming in to a high at around 1050, so that probably wasn’t helping much. And the very low cloud was adding a gloomy aspect to proceedings. The wind wasn’t an issue, but with bomb sets struggling to a feeble knee to waist high, it was almost beside the point.

Hey, what can ya do? It’s spring idin’it?

A few thoughts on the outlook as we hit the midweek mark.

From the shape of the models, we’re settling into a protacted period of 6-8 sec NE wind swell in the 1 to 1.5 metre range. Said models are showing activity in the southern ocean and off to the east of NZ over the next week, but at this stage it looks unlikely that we’ll see any significant fetch zones pointing our way for the time being. Maybe this time next week we might get a slight upward bump into the chest to head high range at east to ne spots. I don’t have high confidence on that right now, but it at least looks plausible.

Go well with your plans today and have a good one.

Weather Situation

A semi-stationary high over the eastern Tasman Sea extends a ridge to southeast Queensland. This pattern will persist for several days.

Forecast for Wednesday until midnight

Winds: North to northeasterly 15 to 20 knots tending northerly 15 to 25 knots later in the evening. Seas: 1 to 2 metres. Swell: Northeasterly 1 metre. Isolated thunderstorms.

Forecast for Thursday

Winds: Northerly 10 to 20 knots, reaching 25 knots at times, decreasing to 10 to 20 knots around dawn then decreasing to 10 to 15 knots during the morning. Seas: Up to 2 metres decreasing to below 1 metre around midday. Swell: Northeasterly 1 metre. Isolated thunderstorms.

Forecast for Friday

Winds: Northerly 10 to 15 knots tending north to northeasterly 15 to 20 knots during the afternoon then increasing to 20 to 25 knots during the evening. Seas: Below 1 metre increasing to 1 to 1.5 metres during the afternoon then increasing to 1.5 to 2 metres during the evening. Swell: Northeasterly 1 metre.

Commonwealth of Australia 2010, Bureau of Meteorology

How it looked at the north end of the Collaroy-Narrabeen stretch around 1245.

Earlier today over the jump…
Read the rest of this entry �

Hello Friends,

With the forecast calling for south wind this morning, your correspondent decided to make an early start on the day. I checked the Warriewood to Mona stretch first. Not super fabulous, it has to be said. The little windswell is mostly in the knee high range but here and there, depending on the current state of the tide, you might find a little peak focusing. However, the southerly isn’t going to do a lot to help things, surface-wise. Judging from the buoy data coming in from down at Eden and Batemans Bay, there is reason to think that we’ll also get an uptick in the south swell over the course of the day.

About the best I saw early was a sort of complex of peaks from carparks North. Quite a few bods on it, but as we got closer to 0900, more and more folks had to peel off to attend to other obligations. I sampled a few myself and can report that the water was beautiful.

On the way back to the office I swung into Longy for a squizz at happenings. No south swell energy apparent, but the wind was chopping up the knee high froth for a couple mal riders up the north end. From there south to the single surfer waiting hopefully in front of the DYSLSC there was not another person in the water.

Ok, gonna post this and then have a look at the latest run of the models for ya…

TIDES: L @1030, H @1622
Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Strong wind warning.
Tuesday until midnight: Wind: W/NW 8/13 knots ahead turning SW early morning then S’ly 20/30 knots during the morning.Sea: about 1 metre rising to 2 to 3 metres behind the change.Swell: Increasing to S/SE 2 to 2.5 metres.
Wednesday: Wind: S/SE 10/15 knots tending E/SE.. Sea: 1 to 1.5 metres. Swell: S 2 to 2.5 metres.

Thursday: Wind: E/SE 5/15 knots.

Mild start to Sunday, but the ocean is basically still...

Hello Friends,

As expected, it’s micro again this morning. Out at sea it’s a metre from the ENE at 7 seconds. And that pretty much says it all. Don’t think it’s just Sydney either. According to the latest data from the MHL buoys off the NSW coast, everywhere else is facing more or less the same conditions.

As I write this around 0800, the wind is out of the NW at around 20 kts. It should pick up a bit more ahead of a late SW-SE change of similar strength late today. The Bureau reckons the primary direction of the windswell should move around to the south.

Last week the models were showing the potential for a spike around Mon-Tuesday. There still seems to be a possibility, but the predicted period of 6-8 seconds means that it won’t likely amount to much of anything, particularly as it’s going to be coming from the south (not the greatest direction for Sydney). The best shot at a wave looks like being early Tuesday.

Of considerably more interest is the very long period pulse forecast to arrive around Wednesday afternoon from the south. As I said on the radio yesterday morning, the models are showing a very brief pulse of exceptionally long period south swell. One of the models reckons we could see period readings of up to 18 seconds! The height of the swell is around 1.5 metres they say, but that huge period means that wave faces could easily be double overhead at spots taking the full brunt of the south swell. The Bureau’s wind call is for N-NE’lys getting up to 20-25 kts. The only annoyance is that Sydney might see the peak power in the middle of the night. However, if you’re up the coast from here on Thursday… could be good… could be very good…

Which reminds me, now that we’ve got a new you-beaut set up behind the scenes at RealSurf, it is much easier to add new reporters. So, if you live somewhere that we never get reports from and you’d like to contribute your personal take on the day to day changes of your spot, use the contact page to drop me a line.

In a more general vein, I’m always interested in finding out about other surf related websites (particularly blogs with a personal perspective on surfing), so feel free to share your finds with us via the aforementioned contact form.

Go well with your day, wherever it may take you!