Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 17th March)

Best Days: Tues for the most size, but there'll be small inconsistent E'ly swell for most of the week with mainly light winds. Expect lots of sitting around and chatting between waves though.

Recap: Friday’s SE swell eased through Saturday though the early morning saw initial 3-5ft sets at exposed beaches. Smaller surf then padded out the weekend, mainly a long range E’ly groundswell that produced quality 3ft+ sets though there have been extremely long breaks between waves. A small S/SE swell was also in the mix on Sunday and early today. Conditions have been clean with light winds and sea breezes. 

This week (Apr 18 - 21)

Our current long range E’ly swell is expected to continue motoring along into Tuesday, though a gradual easing will probably occur into the afternoon. And set waves are likely to remain extremely inconsistent, so it’s likely that there will be long periods of tiny waves between sets. 

The biggest waves should push 3ft+ at exposed beaches but it’d be quite possible to rock up and watch the surf for fifteen minutes and not see a single wave. So bear this in mind when choosing a populated lineup, as there won’t be many waves to go around.

I’m not expecting much leftover swell from the south on Tuesday so its likely that south facing beaches could be a little smaller than remaining open beaches.

Surf size will then slowly ease from the east for the rest of the week, probably holding 2ft+ through Wednesday and Thursday and then a little smaller into Friday, and equally inconsistent as per what we've seen today. 

Other than this, there are no other major swells expected for the rest of the week. The Southern Ocean storm track will be aligned outside of our swell window, and a developing trade flow through the Northern Tasman and Coral Sea won’t initially be well aligned for our region. 

Fortunately a weak pressure gradient over the region will maintain generally light variable winds and sea breeze each day. 

This weekend (Apr 22 - 23)

With our south swell window expected to remain inactive for some time, and the Tasman Sea expected to be dormant for the foreseeable future, we have to look elsewhere for inspiration this weekend. And unfortunately there's not a lot happening.

A developing trade flow through the second half of the week may kick up some minor E/NE swell across exposed beaches this weekend, but I doubt there’ll be much more than a lazy 1-2ft at swell magnets. In fact we may see a similar amount of leftover size from the tail end of the abating long range E’ly groundswell (though once again, it’ll be very inconsistent). 

Conditions should be nice with light winds and sea breezes again both days, but it’s looking to be pretty small. 

Next week (Apr 24 onwards)

Still nothing significant standing out in the long range charts at this stage for Southern NSW, so we could be looking at an extended period of small surf through much of next week too.