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

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: large windy south swell.

Recap: Thursday ended up being better than Friday. I’m not quite sure whether today’s expected swell arrived earlier than forecast (Thurs AM rather than Thurs PM), or whether Wednesday’s small south swell persisted longer into Thursday than anticipated, and Friday’s S/SE swell was a bit of a fizzer - but either way Thursday delivered fun 2-3ft surf across south facing beaches with light offshore winds. This morning backed off to 2ft and early offshore winds gave way to a light/moderate northerly breeze.

This weekend (July 15th - 16th)

The weekend ain’t looking too crash hot.

Our current SE swell from today will ease into Saturday so we’ll kick off the weekend with very small, slow and inconsistent swells abating from the SE. Winds will be offshore so conditions should be clean but there won’t be much size around, even at exposed swell magnets. 

In Wednesday’s notes I mentioned an outside chance for the NZ system (responsible for today’s waves) to fire up a secondary fetch and provide some small long period surf through the weekend. Unfortunately there hasn’t been much in the way of reliable satellite scatterometry passes over this region in the last few days, but model data - which is usually a good approximation anyway - didn’t show any favourable attributes, and they’re not suggesting any new energy either. So I am discounting this as a possible swell source for the weekend.

Otherwise, the small south swell for Sunday has been eases back a smidge in the model runs. A strong W/SW airstream exiting eastern eastern Bass Strait will generate a small swell that should glance the Southern NSW south swell magnets throughout the day. We probably won’t see much more than a lazy 2ft of surf at south facing beaches, with tiny conditions prevailing elsewhere (though the Hunter should pick up a few bigger waves near 2-3ft). 

I wouldn’t clock up too many road miles changing waves though.. Sunday's swell is from an erratic source and certainly isn’t the best synoptic example I’ve seen from this next of the woods.  

Next week (July 17th onwards)

The first half of next week looks rather craptacular.

A small trough may form off the Lower Mid North Coast on Sunday night, but wind speeds are currently modelled to be under 20kts and it isn’t expected to hang around either. So I don’t expect we’ll see much surf from this but I’ll keep a watch over the weekend.

A northerly flow will develop parallel to the NSW coast early Monday though I doubt it’ll generate any meaningful surf either.

Winds will then strengthen from the NW, W/NW and then W through Monday afternoon, Tuesday and Wednesday as a large mid-latitude low moves approaches from the west. Tiny conditions will prevail through this time frame.

This mid-latitude low will finally enter our south swell window on Wednesday. It’s too early to say whether we’ll see an appreciable increase in new swell by COB Wednesday, but the trend will certainly be upwards overnight and Thursday’s looking to be solid and windy out of the south, up to 6-8ft or more at south facing beaches but with W/SW tending SW gales. So, protected southern corners will offer the best waves (though much smaller in size).

This large swell will then persist through Friday as a secondary front wraps around the primary Tasman Low. It looks like winds could be tricky in the morning - tending more southerly though early SW winds are possible - but a gradual easing trend is expected throughout the day.

So, it looks like our lengthy spell of small surf is about to come to a windy close later next week. I’ll have more precise info on this event in Monday’s updates. 

Have a great weekend!