Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 8th November)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: strong, easing S'ly swell with mainly light winds. Sat: renewal of S'ly groundswell with mainly light winds. Sun: smaller S'ly swell with light winds. 

Recap: The Tasman Low that developed Monday delivered a large S’ly swell on Tuesday, slightly bigger than Monday’s estimate (actually, closer to Friday’s estimate, which was downgraded on Monday). Satellites didn’t cross the core of the low as it reached maturity, so it’s hard to tell what was responsible for the bulk size, though it was likely due to storm force winds for a brief period, within close proximity to the mainland. South facing beaches across Sydney pushed 5-6ft and the Hunter coast was closer to 6-8ft at times, though protected spots were much smaller, and size eased rapidly throughout the day. Winds were briefly SW in the morning but swung gusty S’ly during the day. Today we’ve seen persistent large southerly swells, temporarily down this morning to 4-5ft at south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter) but with gusty S’ly winds. A size increase is expected later, from a longer period S’ly groundswell, which is now showing on the spectral data across buoys south of Sydney. 

This week (Nov 9th - 10th)

Today’s fresh southerlies will abate overnight, and the next four days will see mainly light winds under the influence of a slow, stable pressure pattern. A high through the Southern Tasman Sea will drive a ridge through Queensland waters but across our region it’ll keep wind speeds generally below 10kts. We will see onshore tendencies at times but conditions won’t be too bad.

The new long period southerly swell building this afternoon will ease slowly through Thursday and Friday.

Early Thursday morning should still pick up 3-5ft sets at south facing beaches (smaller elsewhere though bigger in the Hunter) before easing throughout the day, and Friday morning will be down to about 3ft at south friendly spots (again, with a similar trend across other beaches). 

The most crucial factor for surf prospects will be how the banks have fared after this bout of strong southerly swell.  

This weekend (Nov 11th - 12th)

Similar conditions as per Thursday and Friday are now expected over the weekend, with a slow moving, dominant high pressure system in the Southern Tasman Sea maintaining generally light onshore winds, variable for periods in the mornings. 

The models are still pushing a strong southerly swell into Southern NSW on Saturday morning, but I am a little cautious on the predicted size. The storm track is very zonal (west east) but interestingly, I think the fetch width and region of intensification is a little better positioned than Monday’s run.

As such, I have marginally increased my size forecast for Saturday morning from 3-4ft+ to 3-5ft, however the model guidance has marginally pulled back size estimations from 4-6ft to 5ft for the dawn patrol. I guess this is a good example of both the computer generated and human forecasts slowly converging to an agreeable point before the fact.

Anyway, the most size will occur through the early part of Saturday morning, and wave heights will ease throughout the day. Expect bigger waves across the Hunter (5-6ft bombs), but conversely, it’ll be very small at beaches with less southerly exposure. 

Surf size will then ease rapidly through Sunday though early morning should see some 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches (down to 1-2ft by the afternoon), with smaller options elsewhere, though again a little bigger in the Hunter. 

Next week (Nov 13th onwards)

Early next week looks a little drab. A small low forming along the trough line in the northern Tasman Sea this Thursday won’t spin up favourably for us, mainly due to to a rapid E/SE track.

Otherwise, our long range southern and mid range eastern swell window look benign under the influence of a dominant blocking high. 

Long term prospects still show some interesting tropical developments near the Fijian region around Wednesday of next week, with a deepening E’ly dip now showing up across most of the models. This has given much more credibility to the changes of a swell event occurring, though we still need quite a few days to pin down the specifics. At this stage expect a moderate E/NE groundswell towards the end of next week and over the following weekend. More on this in Friday’s update.