Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 1st March)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: slightly easing E/NE swells and pockets of OK winds. Mon onwards: series of large SE tending E'ly swells all the way through until Friday, somewhat windy at times though. Could be a couple of very sizeable days in the mix. 

Recap: E/NE swell built through Tuesday and is offering fairly steady 3ft sets across most coasts today. Winds have been a little funky at times - for example dawn this morning saw 20kt E’lies - but winds then swung light S/SE around 9am and the surf improved rapidly through late morning and into lunchtime. 

This week (Feb 28th - Mar 3rd)

The current E/NE swell is largely the byproduct of a broad ridge between a high pressure system in the south-eastern Tasman Sea and a broad tropical depression across the Coral Sea and Tropical South Pacific. Whilst wind speeds aren’t terribly strong, the fetch width is considerable and we’re seeing plenty of waves across the entire East Coast as a result. 

Today’s peak in size was also generated by a small secondary fetch in the Central Tasman Sea on Monday, which pushed into our region and enhanced the overall trade swell size. 

A broad trough is now developing along the coastal margin and this has shifted the head of the easterly fetch further east, away from the coast. As such we can expect a slow decrease in size through Thursday and Friday, though not much.

Most beaches with good NE exposure should still see 2-3ft sets on Thursday but it’ll become a little more inconsistent, and may ease back into the afternoon a touch. Winds should be light and variable (which means any possible direction - including onshore), but generally offering OK surface conditions.

Friday should also see set waves holding around the 2-3ft mark though a little more peaky and not quite as strong as what we have seen today. 

As for Friday’s winds - a low pressure system is expected to form off the South Coast during the day. Computer models have weakened this projected system since Wednesday’s runs (don’t worry, it’s being compensated for down the track), and this has had an affect on the likely airstream we’ll see during the day - but overall, it's looking OK. 

The low is forecast to develop south of Sydney, so the South Coast is at risk of a developing S'ly flow early in the morning, but across the Illawarra and Sydney regions we should see early SW winds with a chance for S’ly breezes to impact these coasts after lunch. The Hunter may even see early W’ly winds. 

This weekend (Mar 4th - 5th)

We’re still looking at a small undercurrent of E/NE swell all weekend, but the dominant feature is a couple of local swells thanks to a developing low pressure system off the coast. Thee’ll be two components in the mix - a short range S/SE swell generated Friday from further south, but an additional short range E'ly swell generated overnight Friday and into Saturday from a secondary fetch forming east of Sydney. 

Although wind strengths won’t be terribly strong, the close range nature of this fetch means we should still see some decent sets push through over the weekend. I think the models are undercutting Saturday’s size (3ft), and it’s more likely that we’ll see 4ft sets across most open stretches during the afternoon (may be a little smaller early morning). 

Obviously, onshore winds will be a problem in some areas however there is hope that we’ll see a westerly outflow across the northern flank of the low’s axis, which should be across the Sydney region (i.e. westerly winds will be possible across the Hunter, but with a much smaller chance of these conditions as you head south from the Central Coast).

On Sunday, we’ve got a complex outlook right now. Both of Saturday’s swell sources are expected to ease in size, but the low is modelled to redevelop a stronger SE fetch off the South Coast, driving SW tending S’ly then SE winds across many coasts, along with a building short range SE swell (following a temporary dip in size at dawn). 

So there’s a chance for a brief window of clean conditions early morning but for the most part it looks like another round of wind affected short range swells across the beach breaks to finish the weekend. Though, it could become quite sizeable late in the day (more so on Monday).

Next week (Mar 6th onwards)

The best part of the current synoptic setup is that it’s associated with a blocking pattern, which means very little west-east movement in the broadscale systems. 

And this is a good thing, as it’s going to allow the weekend's Tasman Low to meander through our swell window for quite some time.

Current model guidance is suggesting a rapid intensification overnight on Sunday, leading to a large, windy SE swell through Monday, possibly north of 6ft by the afternoon though local conditions will confine the best waves to sheltered corners and points.

From here on, it appears that we’ll see multiple low pressure centres develop in the Tasman Sea through the middle of the week, each of which will exhibit strong to gale force winds from the eastern quadrant, generating strong surf for the entire East Coast.

In fact the models maintain a very active Tasman Sea right through the week, easing off next weekend. Which means we’ve got at least a week of strong swell activity ahead for the entire East Coast, and it’s very likely that several of these days will become quite large out of the east - our surf model has five consecutive days of surf size in the 5-6ft range (or higher) and to be honest I think there’s a couple of undercalls within the current model output - we could be looking at a lot more size than that (particularly around Thursday). 

But, it’s too early to pin down specifics (the models have been moving around a lot over the last few days) but confidence is now pretty high that this is the major swell drought-breaker we’ve been waiting for for quite some time. Let the flood gates open!