Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 17th September)

Best Days: Thurs: strong south swell building, good winds early. Fri AM: good south swell with early offshores. Sat/Sun: plenty of south swell but tricky winds (likely to be a brief window early morning). Next week: continuing south swell. 

Recap: Tuesday morning offered an average mix of small S’ly swell and building NE windswell, but a mid-arvo W’ly change cleaned things up for the late session. A second, slightly stronger and bigger (but very inconsistent) south swell provided great waves this morning under a moderate W/SW breeze. South facing beaches in Sydney reached 2-3ft, with the Hunter seeing 3-4ft waves at times. This swell seems to now be slowly easing in size.

This week (Sep 18-19)

Southerly swell will dominate the entire forecast period. A strong front is crossing the coast, and expected to form a low east of Tasmania overnight; this will generate a broad, strong SW fetch well offshore from the South Coast as a result.

Although not favourably aligned for the southern NSW coast, we should still see a reasonable amount of swell spread back into the mainland, reaching a peak late Thursday afternoon, holding into Friday morning. 

Thursday will start off a little undersized, but south facing beaches in Sydney are likely to peak somewhere between 3ft and 5ft by the end of the day (with smaller surf at beaches not open to the south) and we’ll probably see a few stray 6ft sets in the Hunter region at times.

Winds are looking pretty good for the most part - mainly W/SW across most regions both mornings however we’re likely to see a swing to the S/SW in the afternoons. Expect an easing size trend throughout Friday.

This weekend (Sep 20-21)

Two more cold fronts are expected to race through the lower Tasman Sea to provide swell for the weekend. The first front will track NE of Tasmania on Friday morning (providing southerly swell for Saturday), whilst a vigorous trailing front on Saturday morning will ensure plenty of southerly swell for Sunday.

At this stage, local winds are looking a little dicey both days - moderate to fresh S’ly on Saturday, easing back a little on Sunday - however we should see localised regions of early W/SW winds (although, not quite as broad reaching as Thurs/Fri - some locations will dip out, meaning conditions will remain below average all weekend at these spots).

Current expectations are for south facing beaches to fluctuate somewhere between 3ft and occasionally 5ft right across the entire weekend, with slightly bigger waves in the Hunter. However, as per usually, locations not completely open to the south will see smaller surf.

All in all, there’ll be good waves to be found but you’ll have to sniff around for the best surf, and preferably aim for the early mornings. I'll tighten up the specifics in Friday's notes. 

Longer term (Sep 22 onwards)

Yet another cold front is expected to rocket through the lower Tasman Sea on Sunday, providing a new S/SE swell for the region later Monday and into Tuesday morning (probably a tad smaller than the weekend, perhaps inconsistent 3-4ft at south facing beaches).

Looking further ahead, and although there are no definitive weather systems standing out in our immediate swell windows in the longer term, model guidance does point towards a continuation of strong polar activity well south of the Tasman Sea next week, which suggests a continuation of moderate southerly swell through the back half of next week. More on this in Friday’s update.