thinking out loud

Hello Friends,

Another lovely morning in Sydney. Clear skies, winter chill to the air, all that good stuff. One ingredient has gone missing however. Yes, as expected, the swell has just about completely faded away.

The swell at sea is now coming more from the SE, but average height is only about a metre and the period as around about 9 seconds.

There could be a few sets about the place though, because the MHL buoy is still showing some 13-14sec groundswell. This could translate into the odd chest high set at exposed places.

Outlook for the next couple days is still for lots of W-NW wind. It should be 20-30 kts by lunchtime, build a bit in the afternoon and then stay that way overnight and into Tuesday (when it may even pick up a little more).

There’s a bit of excitement on the forums about the swell prospects for next weekend, and looking at the models, I can see why. If possible I’ll pull together another look ahead for you later in the day. In the meantime, I’ve put up another little video of a few fun, offshore waves at Long Reef last Thursday. You’ll find it in the usual spot on realsurf.tv.

Go well with your day!

Hello Friends,

I’m always pleased to report that I’ve been unduly pessimistic about the surf prospects. And so it is this morning when I expected we’d be getting toward flatness territory. But instead, there are light NW winds and the SSE swell has actually improved very slightly in size and on the average period setting.

Down at Dee Why this is showing up as smallish waves (waist to chest high) sets at the point, and bigger (chest to head high plus) but mainly shutting down sets at the southern end of the beach. I reckon if you walked up toward No Man’s, there’d be a bit more size.

At the last data dump from the Sydney MHL buoy, average size at sea was just under the 2 metre mark and the average period is around 11 seconds. It looks as though there is some very long period component in the mix as well. 16 sec on the peaks according to the data. I’m a bit wary of those numbers though because they aren’t replicated down at Port Kembla. But, there are some spikes showing at Eden and Batemans Bay, so… I’m leaning toward it being real rather than the result of some idiot tying up a boat to the bouy.

The Bureau says we’re in for NW-N winds of 10-15kts in the morning, increasing to 15-20 in the afternoon.

The models continue to call for a couple days of near flatness from tomorrow, but late Wednesday night, the south swell should start up again.

Go well with your day!