Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 8th September)

Best Days: Wednesday: fun peaky NE windswell with freshening offshore winds. Only small in the Hunter but a reasonable size at NE facing beaches in Sydney and a few solid sets on the South Coast.

Recap: Average conditions but still strong waves on Saturday (4-5ft) with mainly S/SE winds. A few localised areas displayed brief offshores that tried bloody hard (without much success) to iron out the bumps. Sunday saw a slightly smaller version of Saturday with slightly better winds persisting for a little longer, across a few more regions. This morning has seen smaller waves again, with much cleaner conditions under a light to moderate offshore breeze. NE winds are now developing across the coast.

This week (Sep 9-12)

A relatively benign week of waves ahead, compared to the last little while. Today’s small swell will ease further into Tuesday, leaving the open beaches with a few weak waves for keen surfers. We may see a brief period of clean conditions with N/NW winds at dawn but they’re due to swing N’ly pretty soon and strengthen throughout the day.

Tuesday's strengthening northerlies will whip up a low quality windswell for the afternoon at north-east facing beaches, but it's hard to get excited about surf prospects due to the gusty conditions and likely lack of strength in the waves.

This event is expected to reach a peak overnight, and we’re actually looking at a brief wind of fun waves sometime on Wednesday morning, in conjunction with a front due to cross the coast. 

Winds are expected to swing NW around dawn and then fresh W’ly mid-morning, so the early session will probably have some leftover wobble from the overnight northerlies but it’ll certainly improve as the day wears on. However, the swell will also taper off throughout the afternoon so the best surf will probably occur in the hours following the westerly change (best options likely to be late morning thru’ lunchtime). 

NE facing beaches in Sydney should see peaky 2-3ft surf (smaller at south facing beaches like Bondi), and it’ll be bigger from Wollongong to the South Coast with 3-4ft sets at exposed swell magnets. However, the northern Hunter rarely does well under these NE windswells, so expect only small surf in and around the Newcastle region. 

Offshore winds will persist on Thursday but the NE windswell will fade rapidly so don’t expect much more than small weak residual energy at exposed beaches. No new swell is expected behind Wednesday’s change - a small SW fetch may develop off the South Coast but it looks like being a fleeting development, not broad or sustained enough to generate anything notable. 

A fresh southerly change is then expected to push through the southern NSW coast on Thursday night, however it doesn’t look like being particular strong, nor long lived within our swell window. Additionally, local winds are likely to be fresh S’ly on Friday (easing during the day, with a possible window of SW winds at dawn). Best options at this stage are for peaky surf building to 2-3ft at south facing beaches during the day, with tiny waves elsewhere. Hardly worth rearranging your diary for, but there’ll be waves to squeeze in a quick fitness paddle.

This weekend (Sep 13-14)

Not much in store for the weekend at this stage. We’ve got a significant front bearing down on the region for the start of next week but early indications for this weekend are that we’ll be between swells, with mainly light winds under a ridge of high pressure and a mainly small residual south swell at exposed beaches.

Model data does have a small secondary south swell pushing through on Saturday (originating from the parent front/low to Wednesday’s change, but well south of Tasmania) however I’m not very confident it’ll translate to much at the coast. Either way, keep your expectations low for anything noteworthy this weekend.

Longer term (Sep 15 onwards)

As the Long Wave Trough migrates eastward into the Tasman Sea early next week, we’ll see another round of solid, windy south swell build across the southern NSW coast. Our surf forecast model is tipping 5-6ft surf at south facing beaches on Monday and maybe Tuesday however there’s a reasonable chance it could punch higher than this - I wouldn't be surprised to see another round of 6-8ft+ surf at exposed locations through the first half of the week. More on this in Wednesday’s update.