Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 17th November)

Best Days: Sat: peaky NE swell, though bumpy with onshore winds. Easing Sun with lighter winds. Mon/Tues/Wed: good E/NE swell with mainly light winds. 

Recap: Small NE swells Thursday and today with NE winds. No major size showing across the coast yet with size up to 2ft at exposed beaches. A late increase is still possible today though, however it won’t have much in the way of quality. Also, today has seen a dramatic plunge in sea temperatures (as forecast in these notes on Monday!) thanks to a local upwelling event caused by persistent NE winds. Swellnet forecaster Craig Brokensha exited the Northern Beaches this afternoon with numb toes and fingers, and reckons temps were around 15-16 degrees.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl - handy timing to consider a new springy or long armed steamer given the recent drop in temps!

This weekend (Nov 18th - 19th)

No changes to the weekend forecast in general, though wave heights are slightly under expectations today so I’m going to pull the + for Saturday’s wave height estimates.

The north-east airstream will remain steady of the coast overnight, so despite a moderate strength, its persistent nature should provide a small boost in size. 

Expect NE facing beaches to see set waves somewhere in the 2-3ft range on Saturday, easing to around 1.5-2ft on Sunday. There won’t be a lot of strength in the swell so don’t expect much oomph through the lineup. Wave heights may be tidally susceptible too.

Conditions won’t be great either, with moderate to occasionally fresh NE winds Saturday easing a little into Sunday and tending E’ly. 

On the balance there’ll be rideable waves but you won’t be writing home about it. 

Next week and beyond (Nov 20th onwards)

A large blocking high will remain in position through the Tasman Sea for much of next week, resulting in generally light variable winds and sea breeze most days. Such an extended run of weak surface pressure is somewhat uncommon for this time of the year. 

As for surf conditions - the outlook is tricky.

I’ve been tracking the much-discussed incoming E/NE swell since Nov 3rd (first mentioned in my Queensland Forecaster Notes), and since then the system has upgraded and downgraded itself many times.

Now that we’re right on the cusp of formation, I’m actually not much more confident on what surf will eventuate, mainly because the primary fetch isn’t expected to consolidate very well - and the main region of swell generation will occur very close to New Zealand’s North Island (with the fetch aimed up into the Coral Sea). 

However there’s a reasonably healthy period of development occurring upstream right now - further away from the East Coast - and we should see a reasonable spread back towards Southern NSW from developments today and over the weekend. I just think you’ll need to keep a flexible timeline for the first half of the week - it looks like a fun swell for most beachbreaks across Southern NSW, not an epic road-mission event chasing slabs and points.

The leading edge of this swell is due to push through Monday morning, and should create a fairly steady increase in size throughout the day. I’m not sure whether the early morning will see much size, but by the afternoon most open beaches should have inconsistent 3-4ft sets. This size range is expected to hold through Tuesday before easing rapidly throughout Wednesday morning (note: the models are undercalling Monday's size with only small surf estimated on the graph, which I think is incorrect).

If you had to choose a single window, late Monday or early Tuesday is my pick. 

Also worth mentioning is a small southerly groundswell that may glance the coast early Monday morning, providing small, inconsistent waves to south facing beaches in the 2ft range. 

Looking beyond our mid-week east swell, and a strengthening ridge through the Northern Tasman Sea at the same time is expected to bring about a gradual increase in trade swell for the entire East Coast later in the week and the following weekend, though Northern NSW locations will see much more size than Southern NSW locations, maybe some 2-3ft sets by the weekend.

A deepening trough along the East Coast next weekend may also instigate the development of a much more significant local system early in the following week, located much closer to the mainland (than recent/current systems). This still is showing potential for a solid, potentially large NE swell sometime during the first half of the following week. More on this in Monday’s update.