Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 6th January)

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Best Days: No amazing days but there'll be small peaky beachies most days worth a quick early paddle. 

Recap: As expected, surf heights punched higher than model forecast (2-3ft against the model forecast of 1-2ft), being a slow peaky short range E’ly tending E/NE swell across open beaches. Winds have been mainly light onshore. 

Manly picking up a typical round of small summer E'ly swell this afternoon

This weekend (Jan 7th - Jan 8th)

No changes to the weekend forecast.

Saturday will see a combination of swells: initially a continuation of the slow peaky E/NE energy showing today, plus a small long period S’ly swell generated by a vigorous mid-week Southern Ocean low passing well south of the continent.

Set waves from the E/NE will be similar on Saturday as per today, mainly 2ft at most beaches open to the NE, with very occasional 2-3ft sets from time to time. Surf size should muscle up a little more into Sunday thanks to a strengthening ridge across the Northern Tasman Sea over the coming 24 hours. I doubt we’ll see much more size than what’s on offer on Saturday, but there should be a little more strength, and a little more consistency in the upper end of this size range. So that's a positive.

Saturday’s new south swell will be extremely inconsistent thanks to the distant source but south swell magnets should pick up occasional 2-3ft sets. This swell should be visible across the South Coast's swell magnets early morning but probably won’t be quite into Sydney until mid-late morning, with a peak expected through the late afternoon or overnight, ahead of a slow easing through Sunday.

Winds are looking a little average all weekend, mainly light to moderate E/NE then freshening from the NNE each afternoon but there’s an outside chance for a period of light variable winds in the morning (note: variable implies “any direction”, which includes an onshore flow). 

Next week (Jan 9th onwards)

Monday morning will see a combination of E/NE swell from the Tasman ridge, and some short range NE windswell from Sunday afternoon’s freshening local breeze. Again, size should hold somewhere in the 2ft range at most open beaches but reliable swell magnets may pick up a few 2-3ft sets. 

A slow moving high in the north-eastern Tasman Sea and a trough off the Far South Coast will fluctuate a small northerly fetch off the Mid North NSW coast from Sunday thru’ Tuesday, which will generate a small, poorly aligned N/NE swell for Southern NSW throughout the first half of the week. No great size is expected from this source though.

The slow moving monsoon trough across the northern end of the country is expected to spin up a tropical low in the Coral Sea over the weekend which could become a cyclone by Tuesday. However at this stage - regardless of how much it intensifies - it’s expected to remain well outside of Southern NSW’s swell window.

However, this is a dynamic development for this region and I’ll keep a close eye on proceedings as very small alterations in model guidance could have a dramatic change in the surf outlook for our neck of the woods.

Otherwise, there’s not much of interest on the long term charts. We have enough activity in our trade window early next week (south of New Cal/Fiji) to maintain very small peaky waves across open beaches throughout the middle to latter part of next week, and a gusty southerly change on Thursday should whip up some short range energy in the 3ft+ range for south facing beaches (though of dubious quality owing to the accompanying winds). 

There’s also an interesting polar low appearing well south of the Tasman Sea at the end of the model runs, but as a broad rule - as soon as a tropical cyclone is progged in the synoptics, confidence usually lowers considerably for long range forecasts. So anything beyond three or four days must be taken with a grain of salt right now.

Either way, all signs are still pointing towards some exciting developments in our eastern and north-eastern swell windows over the coming weeks. Hopefully Monday’s outlook will have a little more on this.