Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 25th September)

Best Days: Tues/Wed/Fri: fun small south swell. Thurs: fun NE swell early. Sat/Sun: solid S'ly swell building Sat, becoming large Sun.

Recap: Saturday didn’t offer much surf across the Southern NSW coast, but Sunday delivered a peaky NE swell around 2-3ft with offshore winds. Size eased a little into today but still maintained 2ft sets at NE facing beaches for most of the day, and has remained clean with light offshore winds.

Still some leftover NE swell getting into Manly this afternoon

This week (Sep 26 - Sep 29)

A strong front is exiting eastern Bass Strait today, and it will generate some fresh south swell for Tuesday.

Friday’s model runs tipped a stronger secondary front trailing behind that could generate a slightly bigger pulse for Wednesday, but this has been downgraded in the latest runs. As such Tuesday will see the most size with a slight easing into Wednesday. South facing beaches should pick up 2-3ft sets at the height of the energy (probably around lunchtime Tuesday), and conditions should be clean with generally light winds and afternoon sea breezes. 

Beaches not open to the south will however be smaller, but the Hunter usually does well under these patterns and can expect bigger surf to 3-4ft. 

Wednesday will start off with easing southerly swells of around 2ft+ at Sydney’s south facing beaches, and 3ft+ across the Hunter (smaller elsewhere) but size will ease throughout the day. Early light N/NW winds will see generally clean conditions (especially northern corners, which will also see the most size) but freshening northerlies are expected by mid-morning ahead of a gusty NE flow through the afternoon, as a trough approaches from the west.

A late local rise in windswell is likely on Wednesday through it’s hard to have any confidence on size as it probably won’t kick until very late in the day. However, 2-3ft sets are possible at NE facing beaches in the few hours before dark; they’ll also be bumpy with the accompanying winds.

This NE swell will be short-lived thanks to the passage of a trough pushing the fetch offshore overnight, but the early morning session on Thursday could deliver a brief period of punchy NE swell in the 3ft range (bigger along the South Coast), with offshore winds.

I am reasonably confident on the size, and on the timing of an overnight peak in size - but not on the chances of whether it’ll hang around into the early morning - it could very well have lost a significant percentage of size by dawn. So book in an early session as there’ll be fun waves on offer if you’re quick. Beaches north from Sydney (and also facing south) will however be smaller due to the direction.

The front associated with Thursday’s offshore change will be linked in with a decent swell generating fetch around Tasmanian latitudes. This will kick up a fresh south swell for very late Thursday (more likely overnight) and early Friday morning. Conditions will be clean with offshore winds and south facing beaches should see occasional 2-3ft sets, though size will abate slowly throughout the day. Again, we can expect bigger surf across the Hunter but smaller waves at beaches not directly open to the south.

This weekend (Sep 30 - Oct 1)

Whoa! There’s some pretty serious frontal activity progged for the Tasmanian region later this week, which should set up a strong south swell for the weekend.

There are several sources of energy for the weekend’s waves - W/SW gales exiting eastern Bass Strait, and then a broad post-frontal SW flow extending south to a deep polar low that’s modelled to see core winds of 60kts+ late Friday and early Saturday, close to the Ice Shelf. 

Confidence is not high on the timing of the peak but current model indications suggest sometime Sunday, up to 5-6ft at south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter). But prior to this we should see a solid, though smaller kick on Saturday afternoon. The weekend will probably start off small with residual leftover southerly energy from Friday. 

Both days look great with mainly offshore winds, so let’s take another look on Wednesday to see how the models are behaving.

Next week (Oct 2 onwards)

More strong fronts through the lower Tasman Sea suggests an extended run of intermittent south swell ahead for much of next week. More on this in Wednesday’s update.