Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 13th December)

Best Days: Thurs: fun NE swell though marred by N/NE winds. Fri: good combo of E/NE and NE swells, best inside southern corners with fresh S'ly winds (lighter, so better conditions south from the Gong). Sat/Sun: tricky winds but OK waves with a mix of easing E/NE and intermittent NE swells. 

Recap: Small residual S’ly swell Tuesday only really built across across the Hunter coast this morning, with most other coasts dipping out in the size department. The primary energy seen across the Sydney region today is a building short range NE swell thanks to a developing local fetch. N/NE winds are now gusting 20kts across the coast so conditions aren’t great.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl. Looks like another upwelling event for the short term period - got that new Xmas suit on order? Clicky clicky!

This week (Dec 14th - 15th)

Two different swells will provide waves across our coast to finish the working week.

Today’s freshening N/NE breeze will maintain strength through Thursday ahead of a shallow S’ly change pushing up along the South Coast into the evening, reaching Sydney in the early hours of Friday morning. This means we’ll see peaky NE swell persisting through Thursday and early Friday, with likely size around the 2-3ft+ mark at NE facing beaches (smaller at south facing beaches).

Also on Thursday, we’ll see a new long range E/NE swell start to make landfall, generated by a broad E’ly dip NE of New Zealand earlier this week.

This swell is due to reach a peak on Friday, which will occur as the local NE swell is easing. This should also reach a peak around the 3ft+ mark, with a broader coverage of size across the region though set waves will be extremely infrequent. However, we’ll see plenty of NE windswell in the mix early morning. 

The big problem for the next two days are the local winds. In general, most coasts will suffer under a fresh N/NE breeze on Thursday. However the Far South and South Coasts may see a brief respite into the afternoon as the southerly changes, with winds tending variable for a period ahead of its arrival. 

Unfortunately, Friday looks rather wind affected across the Sydney region. We may see a brief window of opportunity across the Northern Hunter around dawn (just before the change reaches here) but it’s a low percentage game. Otherwise, expect fresh southerlies for the morning, easing into the afternoon. As such, protected southern ends will offer the best waves. 

The best coasts for surf on Friday will be south from Wollongong, which should see a rapid easing trend from the south through the early morning period, with light variable winds expected by late morning/lunchtime and very little in the way of an afternoon sea breeze. 

This weekend (Dec 16th - 17th)

It’s still hard to have much confidence in the weekend forecast, with tricky winds and swells ahead. 

A stalled trough will linger off the coast, maintaining northerly winds from about Sydney latitudes north through to the Mid North Coast, but it may well be situated some distance offshore at times, allowing local conditions to be OK (more chance of this occuring on Sunday than Saturday).

South from Sydney, we’ll see variable conditions all weekend. Note: this doesn’t mean clean and offshore, it suggests we could see wind from any direction of the compass. But on the balance there’s a reasonable chance for OK conditions, possibly good at times. 

As for surf, Friday’s long range E/NE swell will slowly abate through Saturday, starting off around the 2-3ft+ mark (very inconsistent sets), with a small undercurrent of NE swell. 

By Sunday, the E/NE swell will have eased to an inconsistent 1-2ft however a brief strengthening of the NE fetch off the Central NSW coast could kick up some 2ft+ sets across NE facing beaches. It’s hardly a sure thing but there should be some OK beachies on offer.

Let’s take a closer look on Friday. 

Next week (Dec 18th onwards)

In Monday’s notes I mentioned that the long term charts had a multitude of exciting possibilities into the long term period. 

Not much has changed since then - we have nothing specific to gravitate towards, but the end of the model runs are still quite active through the Coral Sea, South Pacific, Tasman Sea and Southern Ocean - this doesn’t happen very often (normally, one or perhaps two basins will show signs of increasing activity).

Anyway, it’s still early days but the pre-Christmas period is certainly looking positive for Southern NSW surfers. Hopefully I’ll have something to hone in on in Friday’s updated forecast.