Beautiful one day, blown out the next - such was the topsy turvy world of the 2025-2026 Lake Macquarie beach season.
Lake Macquarie City Council lifeguard patrols wrap up on Monday until the September school holidays, bringing to an end one of the most tumultuous seasons in recent years.
Team Leader Beach Lifeguards Hayden Copping said the city's four patrolled beaches still welcomed more than one million visitors, with numbers up slightly on the 2024-2025 season.
"But the fluctuating weather means we haven't had the consistency we would normally see over summer," he said.
"It has been a real mixed bag of conditions. We'd get a perfect beach with ideal surf one day, then a southerly forcing us to close the beach the next, only for it to go back to being idyllic a day or two later."
Lifeguards completed almost 100 rescues throughout the season - almost double the number from the previous year.
Mr Copping said the higher number was likely due to the frequently challenging conditions.
Lifeguards also recorded 48 'major incidents', where other agencies such as NSW Ambulance or the Westpac Rescue Helicopter were involved.
"They basically refer to anything that requires further intervention, whether it's a broken bone or a more complicated, multi-agency rescue," Mr Copping said.
Broken and dislocated bones were the biggest contributor to the major incident logbook, with 14 in total across the season.
"We've also had some difficult rescues at unpatrolled locations," Mr Copping said.
"There were eight in total, including at Moonee, Frazer Park, Dudley, Swansea Heads and Swansea Channel."
"At times the people who were rescued were literally seconds away from drowning, so it's a massive credit to our lifeguards and other agencies involved that we were able to avoid fatalities."
"It is testament to the dedication, skill and professionalism of our lifeguard workforce."
Redhead proved to be the city's most popular beach with an estimated 327,000 visitors, followed by Caves Beach (311,000), Blacksmiths (200,000) and Catherine Hill Bay (154,000).
Another 34,000 were recorded at Hams Beach during the six weeks patrols extended to cover that stretch of coast.
