Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 2nd May)

Best Days: Sun/Mon: solid south swell. Tues: moderate south swell with good winds (may get a little funky in the south). Wed: another large south swell, but windy. Thurs/Fri: easing south swell with improving conditions.

Recap: Plenty of fun waves from a mid range south swell on Thurs, with early funky winds (W’ly in some areas, S’ly elsewhere) tending variable then a late NE’er. Tiny leftovers today with freshening offshore winds.

This weekend (May 3-4)

How's the synoptic charts, eh? As discussed ad nauseam all week, we’re looking at the development of a major low pressure system in the south-western Tasman Sea on Saturday.

But just to side track briefly, check out the 850hPa temps across the Central/Northern Tablelands on Sunday night (blue area in the image to the right) - this equates to around 1500m above sea level and temsp dips below zero (happy camping!). This system will deliver an icy smack in the face for those of you who’ve been enjoying the relative warmth in boardies over the last few months - the wind chill is going to bite hard over the next week or so.

Anyway, back to our surf prospects. The weekend can be split evenly in two - a day with little to no waves, and a day with rapidly building waves.

Saturday really doesn’t look very promising.  With no new sources of swell in our window, today’s lingering peelers will ease slowly during the day, accompanied by strengthening offshore winds. Could very well be flat at most locations by lunchtime. The Far South Coast may pick up a small S’ly windswell late in the day from the infancy of this complex system but it’s not worth working around.

Sunday is a different kettle of fish. As the low forms off the coast during Saturday (two centres, one off Batemans Bay, a second off the NE Coast of Tasmania, which will merge through Sunday), we’ll see a broadening fetch of gale to storm force S/SW winds forming between Tasmania and up to about Jervis Bay.

This near-stationary, continually strengthening fetch will generate a heavy south swell that’s expected to ramp up steadily throughout Sunday, with the biggest waves showing towards the end the day (and in fact, Monday morning will probably see the biggest waves from this swell).

It’s hard to gauge just how much size we’ll see on Sunday morning, because most of the swell (at least in the Illawarra/Sydney/Hunter regions) will be primarily sideband energy generated by strong SW winds off the South Coast on Saturday. At this stage I think somewhere in the 3ft range at south-facing beaches is plausible for the early-mid morning session (with much smaller surf elsewhere) but it’s plausible that we may see slightly undersized waves for a few hours at dawn. In the south of the state we'll see bigger waves from much earlier in the day.

Nevertheless, we are most certainly looking at a building trend from mid-morning onwards, and by mid-late afternoon most south facing beaches should be in the 6ft range (maybe some bigger bombs in ther Hunter too). Expect much smaller surf at beaches not open to the south; the swell direction will probably cap open beaches in the 3-4ft range.

As for conditions, we’re looking at fresh W’ly winds all Sunday north of Wollongong, with a more W/SW tendency on the South Coast and SW in the Far South. So conditions should be clean, if somewhat blustery (and cold!) right across the region.

Next week (May 5-9)

Wave heights from this low are expected to peak overnight Sunday or early Monday morning, somewhere in the 6ft+ range at south facing beaches around dawn (bigger near 6-8ft+ across the Hunter), ahead of a slow easing trend into the afternoon. Again, expect much smaller waves at remaining beaches, in the 3-4ft range. Conditions should improve a little more as the pressure gradient relaxes, allowing Sunday’s fresh W/SW winds to become moderate.

Another front pushing through the southern Tasman Sea later Monday will kick up a renewal in mid range S’ly swell on Tuesday afternoon, probably a foot or two under Sunday’s peak but still very nice and clean in the morning with persistent offshore winds. A southerly change is due late in the day (or overnight) but let's wait and see how future model runs pin down the timing. There should be good waves up until lunchtime anyway.

Of more interest is the parent low to this front, which will round the Tasmanian corner later Monday and strengthen a very broad southerly fetch up along the South Coast during Tuesday. This is expected to generate yet another large south swell for Wednesday, but with gusty southerly winds accompanying it. At this stage we’re looking at peak wave heights in the 6ft+ range at south facing beaches but I’ll revise this on Monday with the availability of updated model data.

Looking beyond Wednesday, and slowly easing swells are expected through Thursday and most of Friday ahead of a potential renewal of long period southerly groundswell later Friday, extending from a polar front expected to track well south of Tasmania Wednesday/Thursday and then up into the New Zealand region. This swell looks like it’ll probably arrive for next Saturday but it’s worth putting Friday in the dairy incase the models bring it forward a touch over the coming days.

Longer term (May 10 onwards)

Plenty of south swell is on target for next weekend at this stage, although current model guidance points towards a smaller, longer period event with less consistency (but better winds than what we’re expecting this Wednesday). So all in all a pretty good outlook on the whole.

Also, we've got an interesting trough developing on the long range models just off the SE Qld coast later next week or into the weekend that could deliver interesting possibilities from our east and north/east swell windows during the following week. It's way to early to start discussing options here but worth flagging for discussion on Monday.