Lots of south swell on tap
Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 8th May)
Best Days: Sat: really good south swell with offshore winds. Sun/Mon: smaller pulsey south swell with good winds. Tues thru' Fri: several pulses of S'ly swell, all of 'em possibly quite large (especially Wed/Thurs).
Recap: Small clean waves Thursday and early Friday ahead of a building south swell that’s now pushing an inconsistent 3ft in Sydney, and 4ft across the Hunter (just on the lower side of expectations, but still building). Perfectly clean conditions with light offshore winds.
This weekend (May 9 - 10)
Looks like a great weekend ahead if you have a reliable south swell magnet up your sleeve. We’ve got a combination of mid range and long range south swell for Saturday, and winds will remain straight out of the west both days so the open beaches will be super clean.
I’ve marginally pulled back wave heights for Saturday due to the slower-than-expected upwards trend this afternoon, however that being said - Saturday morning’s surf will consist mainly of long period energy (18 seconds) that could really amplify wave heights at exposed swell magnets and offshore bombies. However, these sets will be rather inconsistent.
Most south facing beaches across the Sydney region should see 3-4ft surf from this source (smaller at beaches with less southerly exposure), but the Hunter always does a lot better from these kinds of patterns and solid 4-6ft surf is still expected across this region.
Expect a small easing trend into Sunday, but with similarly great conditions. South facing beaches in Sydney are likely to be somewhere between 2ft and maybe 3ft (again, much smaller at remaining beaches), but the Hunter should manage excellent 3-5ft surf through the back half of the weekend.
Also in the mix over the weekend will be a small undercurrent of long range E/NE swell, of tropical origins. However no great size is expected from this source.
Next week (May 11 onwards)
We’ve got an extended period of south swell on the cards for the coming week. However, getting the timing of these swells is a little difficult as model guidance is mixed and there’ll be a strong zonal component (west-east) to some parts of the initial pattern, which will reduce size potential from some of the associated fetches.
That being said, we should see southerly swell most days. Monday is expected to see a minor reinforcement of southerly swell from a front existing eastern Bass Strait later Sunday. This should deliver a pulse back into the 3ft range at south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter), and winds are expected to remain from the west. Confidence is not high on the timing of this new swell though.
A moderate polar low well south of Tasmania will be generating a small south swell during this time - expected to arrive Tuesday and Wednesday - however a more significant cold front is expected to push through Bass Strait on Monday that should generate a much larger short range S’ly swell for early Tuesday, possibly up into the 5-6ft range at south facing beaches (smaller elsewhere, bigger in the Hunter). The Far South Coast may even see this new swell arriving late Monday.
Following this, an even bigger and stronger front/low combo is modelled to cross Tasmanian longitudes around Tuesday, and the latest model guidance is quite impressive - current GFS data (from the 18Z run) building Wednesday, holding Thursday and early Friday before easing into the weekend - with easy 6-8ft+ sets across south facing beaches at the height of the event (again bigger near 10ft+ in the Hunter). The first half of this swell would probably be accompanied with strong W/SW tending SW winds too.
It’s still early days to get excited, but there is a broad agreement that a pattern of this nature will develop in some way shape or form (and it’s been on the cards for quite a few days now), so it’ll be worth getting ready for some sizeable action out of the south.
What we could see happen though is the entire pattern shunted forward by a day or so - this has already happened since Wednesday's notes - so don't be surprised if things move around a little by the time we get to Monday. See you then for an update.
Comments
Looking fun (!) at Bondi this afternoon. Wish I was in Vicco though...
How's this lil' shorey bender at Queensie too?
Geez, you get excited over pretty average surf, hey Ben?
Keep up the stoke.
Any day in the surf is better than a day in the office!
agreed.
but that screenshot makes bondi look way better than it was.
i took the mini mal out at around sunset.. it was fun, but only cause i haven't surfed since Monday and i didn't see too many 3 footers, if any.
Nice morning images from our Cronulla reporter Darryl.
Couple images from our Newcastle surfcam earlier this morning too, shows how well lined up this southerly groundswell is.
Bloody hell, how's Newcastle this morning!
...Sth swell marches past Syd occasional 3fter Newey was 5-6.
5-6?!?! i'm moving to Newcastle. tiny this arve, late/low tide, at Curly.
hopefully those offshores aren't going to be too strong next week.
And all of this highlights one of the major difficulties in forecasting these long period south swells that originate from weather systems S/SW of Tasmania (i.e. partially in the swell shadow).
Newcastle always rakes in more size - that's a given - but how much more than everywhere else?
If anything, my forecast for Newy (4-6ft) was a little under - looked a strong 6ft to me (our surf reporter Dave called 6-8ft, which was a little high IMO). As for Sydney, the Northern Beaches didn't look much more than 3ft at south facing beaches to me, but I've had a few reports of 2-3ft surf at non-south facing beaches (which would suggest 4ft sets at SFB). Wouldn't mind seeing some photos though.
But on the other hand, Darryl our Cronulla reporter had 3-4ft+ Saturday morning with accompanying photos (above) that confirmed it. Meanwhile Bondi - normally a reliable south swell magnet - didn't look much more than about 3ft to my eyes. But I watched it for only a short time on the surfcam.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the forecast but unfortunately the consistency of the swell (at least in Sydney) probably made it a little more difficult to take advantage of.
And on top of that, it's dropped like a rocket into this morning.. a much greater size loss than expected. So there's another currveball - the backside of this swell event wasn't forecast very well at all (I expected a smaller, slower easing trend).
Good work Ben your reports are accurate enough for me. Waves were doozys when they came thru, long long period Nth Narra had 4ft on occasion...little av hardly breaking.
7/10 for the Central Coast this morning, make me wanna do a run.
Thanks mate - well if it was 4ft at Northy (which confirms the Cronulla report) then the forecast was bang on. I couldn't surf yesterday so my observations (besides other people's reports) came from 15 mins standing at the beach doing the surf report, then a half hour or so rotating through our surfcams while I did some other work. By nature these long period south swells are very inconsistent so it's hard to pick up the sets on the cams anyway.
I also thought the reports seemed pretty good. Surfed a beachie just south of newcastle which was a good 6ft+
My question is, leaving swell direction out of it, do you believe a large swell period (16-18secs?) and local bathometry have much influence on the varying sizes on the east coast? I've seen some central coast reefs really suck in swell and blocking others when the period has been over 15secs..
Hey Erik,
Here's an article we wrote a few years ago about those very factors. It followed a swell event where the period got up over 15 seconds and bathymetry caused some odd things to happen.
https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-dispatch/2010/09/20/waves-misbehavin-why-size-varied-during-east-coast-swell
Absolutely. They are the two major factors responsible for size variation across various coasts.
Wave energy on the Sydney coast is about as low as it gets this morning. Check the Directional Spectra:
http://new.mhl.nsw.gov.au/data/realtime/wave/Stn-sydney
NO ONE in the water at NN @ 9 o'clock, that is unheard of
Just going through the data now for the Monday forecast - although today's expected S'ly swell is running quite a bit late, I still think there's a chance that we'll see an uptick in energy very late afternoon.
The ASCAT readings exiting eastern Bass Strait this morning are really impressive, albeit off-axis from our swell window: extended W/SW thru SW gales that should generate 3ft to almost 4ft surf at Sydney's south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter) for tomorrow morning.