Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 5th October)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: building S'ly swell with good winds. Sat: early session before the S'ly change, with easing S'ly swell. Mon: could see a late window of peaky NE windswell and W'ly winds. 

Recap: Tuesday was flat across Southern NSW. Today started off very small but a new S’ly swell has built in size this afternoon, and is now offering 3-4ft sets at south facing beaches. Conditions are perfect with light to moderate W’ly winds. 

Solid clean lines at Bondi this afternoon

This week (Oct 6th - Oct 7th)

Today’s south swell is expected to peak this evening, and then fall away into Thursday morning. 

However, as we’ve been monitoring a little while, we have several new pulses of south swell due over the coming 36 hours, courtesy of a vigorous front and low passing across Tasmanian longitudes. Maatsuyker Island - off the southern tip of Tasmania - this afternoon recorded a north-west wind gust of 86 kts (159km/hr).

The first swell expected to push through Southern NSW on Thursday will be generated by strong to gale force W/SW winds exiting eastern Bass Strait. This should provide a similar increase in size and timing as what we saw today, with Sydney’s south facing beaches seeing strong mid-late afternoon sets in the 3ft+ range, and bigger surf across the Hunter (though much smaller surf at remaining beaches). So expect much smaller surf at dawn.

Thursday’s conditions are looking generally clean with light winds and sea breezes. 

Long period energy from the parent low tracking below Tasmania will trail behind, and is not due to reach the South Coast until late Thursday, and then Sydney sometime in the early hours of Friday morning. With core winds in excess of 50kts, we should see peak swell periods reaching 17-18 seconds as the energy glances the Southern NSW coast.

The models are not picking up this swell very well at all, and I think we’re going to see bigger surf than our graphs are showing. Most of Sydney’s reliable south facing beaches should see 3-4ft+ sets throughout Friday (again, smaller at beaches not open to the south) but because of the large swell periods, we’ll see surf size magnified considerably at offshore bombies. The northern Hunter will also pull in much larger surf from this source (5-6ft+ sets) owing to its more favourable alignment to the south, in addition to its excellent local bathymetry. 

The only downer is that sets are likely to be inconsistent, and we’ll probably see a slight easing trend throughout the day. 

To cap off the forecast, surface conditions are looking excellent thanks to high pressure ridge driving moderate north-west winds. So all beaches will be clean, including those directly open to the south. 

This weekend (Oct 8th - Oct 9th)

On Monday I made mention of a possible S’ly change for Sunday morning. The latest model guidance has pulled this forward by ~18 hours with an arrival now due on Saturday, so you’re going to have to make the most of the Saturday dawn patrol for the best conditions and biggest waves. 

Friday’s late easing trend will persist into Saturday morning so we’ll be back to the exposed south swell magnets for the most size and best conditions under a moderate NW breeze. Once the change hits - currently pegged just before lunchtime - conditions will deteriorate at these beaches. 

South facing beaches should see early inconsistent 2-3ft sets (smaller elsewhere) but it’ll be bigger across the Hunter. Expect this swell to fade into the afternoon. 

The southern change will whip up a small, low quality S’ly windswell through the afternoon but it’s not worth working around. 

On Sunday, winds should be light and variable early ahead of a freshening N/NE breeze into the afternoon. We may still see a residual S/SE flow about the Hunter, and most exposed beaches may see some residual southerly lump through the lineup, but it'll improve as the morning wears on. 

A new S’ly swell generated by the parent low to Saturday’s change (located south of Tasmania) is expected to build throughout the day - we may see a lag at dawn but south facing beaches should reach 3ft+ by the end of the day. However with the northerlies up by this time you’ll need to seek shelter inside a northern corner. The northern Hunter should see bigger surf for the late session too.

Next week (Oct 10th onwards)

Strengthening N’ly winds overnight Sunday and into Monday morning may generate a peaky NE windswell for Monday, but at this stage it’s hard to get a feel for how much size we’ll see as the fetch doesn’t look well positioned for Southern NSW. We may see some 2ft to maybe 2-3ft sets at north facing beaches but let’s reevaluate on Friday.

There's also a reasonable chance that the South Coast will pick up a lot more size from this windswell though (due to the longer fetch length), maybe reaching 3-5ft at exposed north facing locations south of Ulladulla.

Monday's strengthening winds will be associated with yet another intense mid-latitude low pressure system crossing the SE corner of the country. It’ll bring a late W’ly change to the region on Monday (so hopefully a few hours of clean surf to finish the day) before winds swing SW on Tuesday. 

As the low tracks below Tasmania on Monday, it’ll eventually push into our swell window, generating a solid south swell for later Tuesday and into Wednesday. In fact, the eastwards passage of this system looks like it’ll clear the floodgates for a succession of meridionally aligned surface fronts that should generate a series of solid south swells through the rest of the week. Surf size could easily push the 6ft mark from either of these sources though we'll have to take a closer look on Friday with the latest model guidance. 

So, there’s plenty of swell to look forward to in the long term period, but for now we've got much more important swells due in the next few days.

See you Friday!