Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 10th July)

Best Days: Wed: improving conditions as overnight S'ly winds tending SW, plus a new S'ly groundswell. Late Thurs/Fri: small S/SE swell with offshore winds. Sun: small south swell with light winds. 

Recap: A small easing combo of east and south swells provided occasional decent sets early Saturday but the surf otherwise throttled right back into the afternoon and further into Sunday. Conditions were however clean with light offshore winds. A small new south swell is keeping south facing beaches in the just-rideable category this morning with 1-2ft sets under a light offshore breeze. 

This week (July 11th - 14th)

We’ve got a couple of south swells on the way for the next few days. 

A continuing fetch of strong to gale force W/SW winds exiting eastern Bass Strait (the same region responsible for today’s swell) has been strengthened since Friday’s model runs, and is generating a slightly bigger round of south swell that will fill into the South Coast early afternoon today. It should nose into the Sydney region very late afternoon though it’s a knife-edge call as to whether we’ll see an appreciable increase before the sun goes down (chances decrease as you track north of Wollongong).

This swell will peak overnight and should reach 2-3ft at south facing beaches, with slightly larger sets in the Hunter. However there’s a fair chance that the biggest waves will occur under the cover of darkness. Beaches will less southerly exposure will be considerably smaller.

So, Tuesday’s surf prospects from this source will be highest at dawn - expect a drop throughout the day. Early morning will also offer a brief window of light offshore winds ahead of a moderate to fresh southerly change extending northwards through the morning. This change will generate a low quality southerly windswell for the afternoon, but those locations picking up any appreciable size will be wind affected.

A second, longer lasting southerly groundswell is then expected to fill in later Tuesday, peaking through Wednesday, generated by a stronger procession of fronts and lows well south of Tasmania yesterday. This should see south facing beaches building back up into the 2-3ft range, with larger sets across the Hunter.

Most locations south of Sydney should see early W/SW thru’ SW winds however there’s a chance for a persistent, lingering southerly flow north from Sydney through the Hunter (related to Tuesday’s change). The last few similar systems have performed better than expected, so in general we should see an improvement in conditions through Wednesday but there’s certainly a risk that conditions will be only average quality across these locations on Wednesday, especially early morning. 

Wednesday’s south swell will then ease into Thursday with light winds in general.

The new SE groundswell expected for the latter part of the week has unfortunately been downgraded - a front pushing through the south-eastern Tasman Sea later Tuesday has been weakened, and the low forming off New Zealand's West Coast won’t be quite as strong, and its alignment is now expected to be more towards New Caledonia than the East Coast of Australia. This is certainly not a good thing (and hopefully the trend doesn't continue further).

Our model is only calling 1ft surf from this system (late Thurs/Fri) but I think this is rather pessimistic - we should see a new S/SE swell filling in on Thursday afternoon (peaking Friday) around the 2-3ft range across open south facing beaches north from Sydney to the Hunter, with smaller waves south of here, and it'll be much smaller at beaches will less southerly exposure. 

Freshening NW winds will keep conditions clean to finish the week. 

This weekend (July 15th - 16th)

Not a lot expected this weekend. Friday’s S/SE swell will ease into Saturday so surf size will be small to start the weekend. Offshore W/NW tending W/SW winds will keep conditions clean in the wake of a cold front crossing the coast overnight.

A low developing east of Tasmania around the same time as the frontal passage looks like it’ll slip away to the south-east, which will reduce its swell generating potential (for our coast). However, strong W/SW winds exiting eastern Bass Strait plus a brief fetch of southerly gales around the low itself should generate some fresh south swell for Sunday. Let’s peg size around the 3ft range at south facing beaches for now (slightly bigger in the Hunter) but much smaller elsewhere, clean with offshore winds. 

Next week (July 17th onwards)

Nothing major on the cards for next week at this stage. Let’s see if Wednesday has any advance clues.