Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 4th September)

Best Days: Wed: building S'ly swell, biggest and best in the a'noon. Thurs: bigger, stronger S'ly swell. Fri/Sat: large S'ly swell, offshore winds. Sun: moderate, easing S'ly swell, offshore winds.

Recap: Slowly easing SE swells all weekend provided good waves on Saturday with mainly light variable winds. Smaller surf prevailed on Sunday and northerly winds freshened from mid-morning onwards, creating choppy conditions into the afternoon. Today has seen very small residual swells and offshore winds. 

This week (Sep 5th - 8th)

We’re starting with a blank canvas, and the outlook is up, up, up as a series of stepladder south swells build across the region this week.

Initially, the first round of new energy will be small, low confidence energy originating from a brief fetch of westerly gales exiting eastern Bass Strait today. In general, this airstream has been more W/NW than W’ly so it’ll generally be aimed towards New Zealand with very little spread towards our coast. But a minor tweak in the fetch alignment is modelled for later today, and this may provide a small brief spread of south swell to glance the coast on Tuesday, probably in the afternoon. 

I’ll be surprised if most south facing beaches in Sydney punch higher than 1.5ft, and the Hunter may see some stray 2ft+ sets late in the day. Elsewhere it’ll remain flat with fresh offshore winds. Expect tiny conditions through the morning too. 

A more sustained W’ly flow exiting eastern Bass Strait on Tuesday will set up a slightly better aligned S’ly swell for Wednesday, though once again there’ll be a large range in size across the coast, and many beaches will remain tiny. South facing beaches across the Sydney region should build from 1-2ft through the morning, up to 2-3ft+ into the mid-late afternoon as new longer period energy kicks in. However beaches that don’t face to the south will be considerably smaller. 

That being said, the Hunter always does much better under these flukey south swells so expect bigger surf here pushing 3-4ft+ on dark. Fresh W’ly winds will persist about the coast.

A powerful secondary front will round the Tasmanian corner early Wednesday, shifting the broadscale flow to the W/SW thru’ SW and this will create a much bigger southerly swell for Thursday.

Fortunately, conditions will remain clean again with fresh W’ly winds. South facing beaches across the Sydney and Illawarra coasts should see occasional sets anywhere between 3ft and maybe 5ft, and the Hunter region is likely to push 6ft+ at times. Again, it’ll be much smaller at beaches without any southerly exposure so keep in mind the large size variation across the coast. 

While this is going on, a very intense front and low - the most powerful in the sequence - will have traversed the Tasmanian region on Thursday and set up storm force S’ly winds off the South Coast. This is expected to generate a brief but very large S’ly swell that is currently modelled to arrive on Friday afternoon, pushing up into the 6-8ft range at south facing beaches after a smaller though still strong morning of leftover swell from Thursday. However, it’s expected to be a rapidly transitioning system that’s only forecast to last a short time in our swell window, so I’m not especially confident on the specifics just now. However the good news on this potential sequence is that winds should remain generally favourable W/SW. 

In any case, the overall trend is up each and every day until the end of the week. Check back on Wednesday to see how the models are behaving.

This weekend (Sep 9th - 10th)

The large south swell due late Friday is likely to be trailed by a strong secondary front in its wake, which should keep wave heights very strong through Saturday. 

Model guidance currently has Saturday as seeing more size than Friday, but I have a feeling we’ll see things switch around over the coming days. Either way, we’re looking at a solid start to the weekend in the south swell department, and favourable W/SW winds too. 

Ball park figures are in the 5-6ft+ range at south facing beaches, probably in the morning before easing into the afternoon. Expect bigger surf in the Hunter and smaller waves at beaches that don’t face to the south.

This pattern will ease steadily into Sunday, with light winds creating clean conditions. 

Next week (Sep 11th onwards)

There’s nothing off any interest in the long term charts at this point in time. Everything is focused around our large south swell due later this week and into the weekend.