Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 20th September)

Best Days: Thurs: small, easing S'ly swell, early NW winds. Fri: small residual S'ly swell with a brief morning pulse, early NW winds. Sun: possible small NE wind swell, though mainly south from Sydney.

Recap: Small, easing southerly swell padded out Tuesday plus some minor NE windswell too. Today saw a strong south swell build into the 3-5ft range across Sydney’s south facing beaches, and conditions were clean with early light offshore winds and afternoon sea breezes. 

This week (Sep 21 - Sep 22)

Easing surf is expected on Thursday ahead of a minor renewal of south swell on Friday.

Today’s swell peaked early morning and has been trending down all day, we’ll see this bottom out into Thursday from possible 2-3ft sets at exposed south facing beaches early (tiny elsewhere, though a smidge bigger in the Hunter) down to 1-2ft after lunch. Conditions will be clean with early light winds ahead of afternoon NE sea breezes. 

On Friday, we’re generally looking at small residual south swell holding in the 1-2ft range at south facing beaches and tiny surf elsewhere. However, a brief pulse from the south is expected through the morning, originating from a small secondary front wrapping around the transitioning Tasman Low midway between Tasmania and New Zealand today. 

The models aren’t picking this up very well, and unfortunately the latest guidance has slightly tilted the fetch away from our region, but nevertheless I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a few hours where south facing beaches picked up slightly bigger sets north of 2ft and almost towards 2-3ft (greatest chance of this will be through the Hunter, than anywhere else). 

It’s a low confidence event and won’t be very long lived, but is certainly worth keeping an eye out for. Away from south facing beaches, conditions will remain tiny.

Either way, the morning will be your best option as it’ll see the most potential size and also the cleanest conditions under an early light NW breeze. Afternoon NE sea breezes will chop the easing lines to pieces.
 
This weekend (Sep 23 - Sep 24)

The weekend still doesn’t look very good. 

Whatever south swell we see Friday will be largely gone by Saturday, and a small level of NE windswell won’t be enough to warrant any attention. It will however be clean at most beaches with moderate N/NW winds. 

A broad developing N’ly flow off the Northern NSW coast through Saturday should generate a small spread of short range NE swell for Sunday, though there won’t be much size or strength in the offering. 

Some NE swell magnets may pick up occasional 2ft+ sets though I feel they’ll mainly be located south from Sydney, due to the shadowing by the Hunter curve. Remaining beaches and most of the coastline between the Sydney and Hunter regions will be very small indeed. 

Conditions will be clean with freshening W/NW winds. 

Next week (Sep 25 onwards)

Next week doesn’t look much better either, as discussed on Monday. A broad mid latitude low will migrate into the Tasman Sea through Sunday, but it’ll be poorly aligned within all parts of our swell windows. 

A brief fetch of westerly gales exiting eastern Bass Strait sometime Monday should kick up a small south swell for Tuesday but I can’t see much more than a weak, inconsistent 2ft across the Sydney region at this stage.

A secondary low SE of Tasmania (later Sunday) is better positioned within our swell window but unfortunately the fetch length is short and its only expected to last a brief time aimed towards NSW. As such the southerly swell we see from it won’t be very large nor very strong. This may push through around Wednesday. 

Looking further ahead, and a series of deep transitional polar lows may provide some useful long period southerly groundswell later in the week and into next weekend, though nothing especially worthwhile is expected at this stage.  We may also see a broad trough develop mid-week that could lead to some local NE windswell, but it’s still early days. 

More on this on Friday.