Hello Friends,

As expected, not much going on this morning at Dee Why. But the good news is that we should see a south pulse and SW wind by tomorrow morning. The wind’s set to go pretty hard by this afternoon and to blow overnight, but we should have a couple metres of south swell filling in at the same time.

With any luck the energy won’t drop away too quickly and we’ll have waves all day tomorrow with maybe a scrap left over for Wednesday at the south swell magnets.

This could be the best swell we’ve had in a couple months – if it happens as the models anticipate.

By Wednesday evening it could be back to very small. But, the patterns seem to be shifting a bit. The Bureau is watching for a possible cyclone to develop in the Gulf and some of the models are showing it sitting off far north Queensland by the weekend. That’s all a long, long way from surfable cyclone swell in Sydney, but hey, it gives us something to watch.

Go well with your day

SMS donation numbers for Haiti in this article on SMH.com.au

H @1050, L @1730
Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Strong Wind Warning.
Monday until midnight: Wind: S/SW 10/15 knots increasing to 15/20 knots in the morning and to 20/30 knots in the afternoon, chiefly offshore. Sea: 1 to 1.5 metres rising to 2 to 3 metres in the afternoon. Swell: S/SE 1.5 to 2 metres increasing.
Tuesday: Wind: SW 15/20 knots reaching 20/30 knots at first easing to 10/15 knots in the afternoon with local inshore seabreezes.Sea: 2 to 3 metres abating to 1 to 1.5 metres in the afternoon. Swell: S’ly 2 to 3 metres decreasing.

Wednesday: Wind: W’ly 10/20 knots and afternoon inshore seabreezes.

Hello Friends,

I’d say we’re well into a holding pattern. This morning finds us with only a paltry metre of south windswell. There doesn’t seem to be anything at all showing in the corner at Dee Why, so I might make a quick circuit to see how it looks up the other end of the beach.

Well, as you can see, it was very small at Longy. But it was bigger there than around the corner at Collaroy. Windswell is weak and tiny, to put it mildly.

Outlook is for it to be small for the rest of the day. Might come up a touch tomorrow and we could possibly see some south energy on Thursday, building into the solidly surfable range on Friday. My fingers are crossed tight on this one boys and girls!

Tides H @0808 and L @1454
Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Tuesday until midnight: Wind: E/NE 5/10 knots inshore and 10/15 knots offshore at first, becoming NE 15/20 knots throughout in the afternoon and reaching 20/25 knots in the evening. Sea: about 1 metre rising to 1.5 to 2.5 metresSwell: E about 1 metre.
Wednesday: Wind: N/NE 15/20 knots strengthening to 20/30 knots in the afternoon.Sea: 1.5 to 2 metres rising to 2 to 3 metres. Swell: NE 1 to 1.5 metres.
Thursday: Wind: NW/NE 25/33 knots

Hello Friends,

Glassy and very small this morning at Dee Why beach. We have around a metre or so of 8 sec period south windswell rolling slowly in and while it is struggling to get into the waist high range on sets, at least you can occasionally catch one.

From the look of the data coming out of the Batemans Bay and Eden buoys, there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly hopeful where we’re concerned. If anything, it’s looking consistent with the model forecasts for a gradual decline across the day.

However whilst tomorrow seems likely to be pretty similar, there is a possibility that we might see some forerunners of the expected south pulse by late in the day.

Come Monday morning though, we should be seeing fun size south swell (shoulder to head high plus is my modest hope). The wind is set to go southerly in the afternoon on Monday, but if the forecast 14-16 sec periods eventuate, I reckon it won’t be putting people off too terribly much.

With luck, the swell should keep going for at least another 72 hours. Woohoo!

Have yourself a top old Saturday one and all.

Not much too 'em, but at least you might be able to jag something rideable this morning.

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Saturday until midnight: Wind: Variable 05/10 knots, tending N/NE 13/18 knots in the afternoon. Sea: below 1 metre, rising to 1.5 metres in the afternoon.Swell: SE about 1 metre.
Sunday: Wind: Variable 5/10 knots ahead of an early S/SE change 13/18 knotsSea: up to 1.5 metres. Swell: E/SE about 1 metre.
Monday: Wind: NW/NE 10/20 knots ahead of a 15/25 knot S change in the evening.

Hello Friends,

0700: just barely catchable and likely to be less so soon.

Nice morning out there. Shame about the waves though. Outlook is for a sunny start to the day, but with cloud gradually increasing in the afternoon. Should hit a high of around 26 on the coast. Wind was faint at 0700, so the little remnants of yesterday were pretty glassy for the crew in amongst them. But, as a glance at Butts’ pics from yesterday reveals, the contrast is pretty stark.

The outlook is for the swell to fade even more during the day and to basically be flat, or very nearly so, in Sydney for the next couple days. But, there is a little bright spot in the Bureau’s marine forecast this morning… ” A low is expected to deepen over the southern Tasman Sea on Friday. ”

The forecast models are all singing much the same tune on this one, namely that we should see a little burst of south swell starting on Friday night and lasting through close of play on Saturday. Wind is expected to be southerly as well, so the biggest spots (looks like head high plus at this stage), will also be wind affected.

Beyond that, it currently looks as though we’ll drop back to small to flat conditions.

Keep on smilin’ and go well with your various plans!

Hello Friends,

0800: smooth, inconsistent and small but not flat.

What a glorious morning in Sydney. Shame about the very tiny conditions. Dee Why was smooth and glassy as of 0800. There were a few people in the water enjoying the opportunity to catch a few soft little peaks too. The MHL Sydney and Port Kembla bouys have been offline for a few days, so I’m guesstimating that we have something in the range of a metre of mainly south swell with a period of around 7-8 seconds.

Here’s the Bureau’s call:
Wind: SW 10/15 knots inshore, 15/20 knots offshore, easing to 10/15 knots throughout during the morning before turning NE 10/15 knots during afternoon, N/NW later. Sea: 1 to 2 metres. Swell: SE 1 to 2 metres.

According to the various swell models, we’re in for smaller again tomorrow, and then it looks as though we have a week of flatness lining up for Sydney surfers. Basically it looks like a mainly fine week weatherwise with gutless, microscopic NE windswell from about Tuesday through the weekend. Time to get out the mask and flippers or the fishing rod I’m guessing.

I’ll be spending the day at a geek fest devoted to WordPress, the platform on which this site now runs. Trying to pick up more tips to build a better RealSurf for ya. They have wi-fi at the conference, so I might turn up here again later in the day.

Go well with your plans and have yourself a good one

0700: at least it's not SE and overcast...

Hello Friends,

Sunny skies over the coast of Sydney, and it’s set to pretty much stay this way through the weekend. Sadly, the swell forecast models were right and though all the other settings are good – the one we all care most about – is stuck fast on the sub-marginal setting.

The MHL buoy off Sydney is reporting a metre at 8 seconds. That might be just barely enough to give you a mal-able ripple if only the primary direction had a touch more east to it…

I’ve been scrutinising the models, looking for anything to offer us a bit of hope. The Goat’s call for the coming weekend is looking to be right on as usual. The problem for surfers in our little corner of the world is that we keep getting strong high pressure systems coming across the continent which then shunt the nice lows in the southern ocean away from our swell window. Typical spring weather really.

0730: marginal to flat at Dee Why this morning.

Hello Friends,

The settings this morning are pretty close to what they were 24 hours ago – not withstanding the burst of windiness with the change yesterday. Bureau’s call is for light and variable winds this morning, eventually settling to the NE and building to 15-20 kts during the afternoon. The MHL buoy is showing a bit over a metre of 8 sec period south swell. And Dee Why is, as one would expect, small to just about flat. No one was in the water that I could see, but maybe up toward the pole you might find a little tiny something… maybe…

What we all want to know is will there be swell anytime soon. So, to save you a trip to the models for a look, here’s what I reckon they’re telling us. It seems that we’re unlikely to see much improvement over today. It might possibly pick up just a touch as the swell direction gets a bit more around to the SE. But my hopes for waves are, shall we, say, modest.

Tomorrow should see the dominant windswell direction coming out of the SE and, with luck, the period might even bump up enough to make it just barely surfable. It should be another sunny day with light N-NW winds in the morning, building to 20-25 kts. Just as those winds are building to peak speed, it might just happen that the first very long period south sets could begin turning up. At least one of the models is still calling for 18 second (!) periods. Even if a wave is only a metre high, when it has a period of 18 seconds, it can turn into something with a face 2-3x that height – at least. 

But it will be a long wait between those sets. When we have 12 sec period swell, you would get around 4-6 waves in the space of a minute when a set arrives. But when the period is 18 seconds, the distance between waves is around 500 metres! Interestingly, it also means that those waves are feeling bottom once it gets shallower than about 250 metres (which means they start losing some energy to drag). Anyway, when a group of those 18 sec period waves arrives, you pretty obviously will only have three bites at the cherry in the space of a minute – maximum.

‘Too much information Don!’ I hear you cry. Sorry, getting all weather nerdy on ya. Anyway, let’s hope those long period puppies turn up – and that they don’t all happen at night. The pulse could be as short as 12 hours and some of the models calculate the arrival locally to be toward dusk tomorrow…

BTW, I’m still sniffing around for a notebook capable of running XP… if you’ve got something surplus to requirements, put a price on it and drop me a line via our contact form. And thanks in advance!

Go well with your day!

0730: you need something bouyant to catch the sets this morning.

Hello Friends,

Bright and sunny along the coast of Sydney this morning. There’s quite a bank of cloud out on the eastern horizon, but from the look of the radar, it’s heading away from us. Speaking of things heading away from us, the swell seems to fall into that category. It’s currently averaging around a metre from the south at 7 seconds apart.

What that means, as the Goat’s forecast yesterday noted, is that your best hope of a wave is going to be at those spots that face directly south. And even then, I reckon you’ll be scratching to get much of anything substantial. Prospects are not looking too fabulous for the next week it has to be said. Spring is springing, I guess.

That said, I’m sure my fellow forecast model watchers are keeping an eye on the forecast mid-next week development of a major area of fetch heading east toward us from a region immediately NE of NZ. If it plays out the way the models are currently suggesting, we could see some pretty juicy ESE swell starting to fill in from late Wednesday along the far north coast. Again, bearing in mind that this is right at the outer edge of the forecast range, it’s not clear to me that we can expect much of it this far down the coast. But who knows, perhaps by next weekend, we could be looking at an east coast being lit up by a solid groundswell… hey, I can dream can’t I?

Go well with your day!