Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 14th March)

Best Days: Most days should have good waves. Though Sat AM will have the most size. Expect mainly small residual swells from Sunday right through next week, with generally light winds. 

Recap: Strong SE swells on Thursday with a small underlying NE swell, and size around 3-5ft at open beaches. A little more size today, mainly 4-5ft but a handful of reliable swell magnets are reporting occasional 4-6ft bombs. Winds have been mainly light and variable (offshore early, onshore in the afternoons) with good conditions for the most part.

This weekend (Apr 15 - 16)

The three-way merger in the southern Tasman Sea isn’t doing anything interesting from a synoptic perspective so the resulting southerly groundswell for the weekend won’t be anything amazing.

Today’s SE swell from our long-lasting Tasman Low will ease through Saturday though the morning session should still deliver some solid waves, somewhere between 3ft and 5ft at reliable swell magnets. However expect size to ease to 2-3ft by the afternoon, and the consistency to drop as well.

Also slowly building through Saturday will be a very distant, infrequent E/NE swell from a broad, complex system way out in the South Pacific earlier this week. I’m expecting this swell to peak through Sunday and maybe even Monday with sets around 3ft+ but we’ll start to see some of this new energy through Saturday.

Saturday’s conditions are looking generally very good everywhere, except the Far South Coast where a weak front will glance the region, keeping it under a moderate to fresh SW tending S'ly breeze in the morning. Elsewhere expect early light offshore winds and afternoon sea breezes. 

On Sunday, the SE swell will be all but gone however there’ll be some moderate S’ly energy from the southern Tasman merger. Set waves should reach 3ft at south facing beaches from this source. It’ll be a little more consistent than the slowly building E’ly swell, which should reach a similar size during the day (biggest in the afternoon) though you’ll have to be patient for the sets. 

Again, Sunday’s conditions are looking clean with light offshore winds and sea breezes. 

Next week (Apr 17 onwards)

The first half of next week has little on the synoptic charts so we’re looking at a steadily easing S’ly swell (2-3ft sets at south facing beaches early Monday, smaller thereafter), and a levelling E’ly swell on Monday that’ll ease from Tuesday onwards. Expect up 3ft+ from this source as well on Monday - maybe even some bigger waves at reliable swell magnets - though the sets will be very infrequent. 

In fact, the fetch generating this swell looks like it'll remain anchored across the South Pacific for quite some time so we're probably looking at this event "leveling out" at a very inconsistent 2ft+ from Wednesday through next weekend. By the end of the week it'll really start to become inconsistent though.  

Winds look pretty good for the first half of the week with mainly light variable patterns under a weak troughy environment. 

The longer term outlook is interesting with a broad trough expected to develop across the Vanuatu region mid-late week, of which we could see a smaller trough develop in the central/northern Tasman Sea around the same time too. So there’s reasonable potential for a small spread of trade swell (from the northern trough) as well as slightly better potential for a bigger, mid-range E’ly swell from the southern trough - probably not arriving until next weekend though. 

The next Southern Ocean frontal passage worthy of a decent increase in S'ly swell is not likely until next weekend, or early in the following week. 

Let’s take a closer look at all of this on Monday.