Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 18th September)

Best Days: Wed: fun south swell, early offshore winds. Thurs: small, easing S'ly swell, early NW winds. Fri: small pulse of S'ly swell, early NW winds. 

Recap: The weekend delivered plenty of south swell, easing throughout Saturday but building strongly on Sunday reaching 6ft across Sydney’s south facing beaches into the afternoon. Today we’ve seen strong but easing S’ly swell, and early offshore winds ahead of afternoon NE sea breezes. 

This week (Sep 19 - Sep 22)

Tuesday will see a low point in surf size as the current S’ly swell continues to fade in size. South facing beaches may see the odd 2ft+ set through the morning but it’ll ease throughout the day.

A small NE windswell may also be present across exposed NE facing beaches however no major size or strength is expected, maybe a foot or two of low quality energy in the morning tops, if we’re lucky. Winds will however be favourable (early NW swinging gusty SW) so conditions will be clean. 

The SW change will be linked in with a strong front pushing across Tasmania throughout the day, and this will be the source for a decent increase in south swell on Wednesday. It’s not a particularly well aligned system but the fetch is reasonably broad so we should see solid 3-4ft+ sets across Sydney's south facing beaches during the day, bigger across the Hunter. Expect smaller surf at beaches not open to the south.

No major strength is expected in the local pressure gradient so winds should be light and variable with afternoon sea breezes. 

In general, we’ll then see slowly fading S’ly swell for the rest of the week. The only point of interest to keep a watch out for is a small secondary low south of the main low (responsible for Wednesday’s swell) that is expected to slingshot through the lower Tasman Sea on Wednesday. This should provide a flush of fresh south swell for early Friday that the models aren’t picking up too well - I’ll need a few more days to confirm the specifics but south swell magnets may pick up some 2-3ft+ sets on Friday morning, a little bigger through the Hunter.

A brief N’ly flow off the NSW Central/Hunter coast on Thursday evening may also kick up some minor NE windswell for early Friday though nothing overly worthwhile is expected. 

Winds will broadly veer N’ly so Thursday’s easing trend and the possible small pulse for Friday will see generally clean conditions early mornings as the flow briefly swings NW.

This weekend (Sep 23 - Sep 24)

Not a lot in store for the weekend.

Friday’s small pulse of south swell will ease through Saturday and early light offshore winds will perk up from the NE into the afternoon as a strong front approaches from the west. No major surf is expected though south swell magnets (particularly the Hunter coast) may see some small fun peaks through the morning. 

Sunday morning should see some small brief NE energy at swell magnets (occ 2ft sets) ahead of an easing trend during the day. Winds will veer NW as the frontal system draws closer to the East Coast but without any new swell generating systems in either of our windows, the remainder of the day looks pretty small indeed. 

Next week (Sep 25 onwards)

Current model guidance doesn’t really favour much swell into the start of next week. The frontal system approaching over the weekend looks too zonal in alignment and too north in latitude to benefit us in any meaningful way. There is potential for the middle to latter part of next week as the broadscale system moves further east, better positioned within our swell window, but for now the long term outlook is rather small.