Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 29th October)

Best Days: Tues: small easing S'ly swell early morning, with offshore windds at south facing beaches. Sat: chance for a late pulse of new S'ly swell. Sun: solid building S'ly swell wuth good winds. Mon: solid easing S'ly swell with good winds early.  

Recap: Small residual south swell through Saturday offered a few options at exposed beaches, before building NE swells provided bigger waves into Sunday, albeit more wind affected, reaching 3-4ft through the afternoon. This NE swell started to ease overnight, and was down to 2ft+ across most beaches this morning, though interesting Cronulla was reporting 3-4ft sets (even more interest as Cronulla doesn’t usually pick up NE swells very well.. was this an earlier than expected south swell?). Regardless, we’ve seen a building south swell through the afternoon at remaining beaches with sets now in the 3ft range, though conditions are bumpy with moderate SE winds. 

Bumpy south swell at Bondi this afternoon

This week (Nov 1st - 4th)

There’s not a lot of surf on offer this week.

Today’s south swell is expected to peak overnight and then begin a steady downwards trend through Tuesday. It’s possibly that south facing beaches may see a few stray 2-3ft sets at dawn, but for the most part we’ll be looking at rapidly abating surf that’ll likely hold in the 1-2ft range for the rest of the day (maybe even smaller late a'noon). The Hunter should see a few bigger sets but it’ll be much smaller elsewhere with today’s early NE swell all but gone.

Conditions look pretty clean for the early session with light variable winds and sea breezes. 

The models have altered the projected storm track for a front crossing Tasmania on Tuesday afternoon and into Wednesday. It’s now expected to be quite zonal (west-west) in alignment, which is bad news for surfers in Southern NSW as it’s unlikely that we’ll see much, if any swell energy bend back into the coast. 

The very tail end of the fetch - across the lower Tasman Sea on Wednesday morning - may provide a small pulse of south swell but it won’t arrive until overnight Wednesday or (more likely) Thursday morning, and even then we’ll probably be looking at a couple of inconsistent feet at south swell magnets at best (showing a little better across the Hunter). Beaches not open top the south will be tiny.

The South Coast stands a chance at seeing a very late pulse of swell from this source on Wednesday afternoon but for the most part Wednesday looks to be very small across most beaches.

Thursday’s minor southerly swell will be accompanied by light variable winds and sea breezes. 

A similarly zonal, but slightly weaker front traversing the lower Tasman Sea on Thursday look like it won’t have enough energy to benefit NSW surfers. As such Friday is expected to finish off the week with tiny residual swells across most beaches, and just a few very small lines at south facing beaches. 

This weekend (Nov 5th - 6th)

Looks like Saturday will kick off with small NE wind waves thanks to a N’ly fetch developing Friday night. Strengthening NW winds will precede a gusty SW change as a vigorous front pushes off the coast, and we should see a very late kick in new south swell: the models only have 1-2ft at 6pm Saturday, but I think we’ll probably see a rapid increase in the last few hours before dusk with 3-4ft sets.

A much more robust succession of fronts through the lower Tasman looks like they’ll be much more meridionally aligned (north-south) than anything we’ve seen in recent weeks, which means we’re looking at a healthy increase in south swell throughout the day. Local winds should remain moderate W/SW thru’ SW for the most part though periods of S/SW winds can’t be ruled out (especially across the South Coast).

Ordinarily, a fetch of this alignment and strength would warrant a slightly smaller forecast, however the anchored, sustained nature of the synoptic flow makes me believe that we’ll properly see surf heights exaggerated across Southern NSW. 

At this stage we’re looking at south facing beaches building to 4-6ft throughout Sunday (peaking in the late afternoon), reaching  3-4ft at remaining beaches with smaller surf inside protected southern corners. 

Next week (Nov 7th onwards)

The parent low to this frontal progression will round the Tasmanian corner on Sunday, and in doing so will contribute slightly smaller sized but slightly longer period S’ly swell across Southern NSW on Monday. Early indications are for freshening NW winds in the morning tending NE into the afternoon, and surf size somewhere in the 4-5ft+ range at south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter) but smaller elsewhere.

A broad Tasman high is then expected to shunt the Southern Ocean frontal progression to the south, resulting in smaller surf through the middle of the week. There’s nothing else of any significance on the long range charts at this stage.

See you Wednesday!