Fun small weekend waves; long range E/NE swell next week
Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 7th February)
Best Days: Sat: fun small S/SE swell, early light winds. Sun: building E'ly swell, early light winds. Mid-late next week onwards: plenty of long range E/NE swell.
Recap: Fun E’ly swell Tuesday around 3ft ahead of a building S’ly swell Wednesday that reached an inconsistent 3-4ft at south facing beaches.
Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl
This week and weekend (Feb 8-9)
There's not much surf on the cards for the next few days.
Today’s south swell is expected to fade steadily into Thursday, leaving us with inconsistent leftovers around 2ft+ at south swells magnets (mainly the Hunter) with smaller surf into the afternoon and further into Friday.
Winds will freshen from the NE throughout the day, adding unwelcome bumps through the lineup. So conditions aren’t looking too flash, apart for a brief window of early light N/NW winds across a few coasts.
Thursday’s freshening N/NE winds across the coast will generate a small local windswell that’s expected to peak on Friday morning in and around the 2ft mark at reliable NE facing beaches. There won’t be a lot of size not strength in the surf and it’ll bypass a lot of beaches but there’ll be a few little options here and there if you’re keen (don’t expect much at south facing beaches, or across the northern Hunter).
Northerly winds will persist across the Sydney and Hunter coasts into Friday but tend variable south from Sydney under a weak trough.
The only other swell energy to keep an eye out for on Friday is the arrival of a faint long range S/SE swell generated by a polar low well south of New Zealand earlier this week (tied in with the front responsible for today’s south swell). The leading edge of this small swell is due to arrive across the South Coast Friday lunchtime, then the Sydney region into the afternoon, providing 2ft+ sets to south facing beaches throughout the last few hours of the day. However there could be very long breaks between sets and it’s certainly not seen as an overly reliable source of new energy.
This weekend (Feb 10-11)
The small long range S/SE swell due Friday afternoon should persist into Saturday morning though will ease throughout the day. South facing beaches should see occasional 2ft+ sets, perhaps the odd bigger one at reliable swell magnets such as along the Hunter coast, though they’ll be quite inconsistent and will ease throughout the day.
Late on Saturday afternoon, as the S/SE swell eases we’ll start to see the leading edge of a new E’ly swell generated by a westward-tracking trough across the north of New Zealand over the coming days. It’s expected to cross the North Island and enter the Tasman Sea on Thursday and should reach maturity early Friday, before easing off (though a trailing NE fetch to the NE of new Zealand should maintain background energy beyond the initial pulse).
This swell will be best aimed into Northern NSW but should still push 3ft+ across open beaches from very late Saturday through (more likely) most of Sunday.
As for the weekend’s winds, they’re looking to be mainly light and variable Saturday morning before freshening NE into the afternoon, then tending light and variable Sunday morning ahead of S’ly change pushing up the coast into the afternoon. Saturday afternoon’s NE’er may also generate some small windswell for the coast early Sunday though there won't be much in it.
So, Sunday morning looks to be the best for weekend surf prospects, but I’ll fine tune the details on Friday.
Next week (Feb 12 onwards)
Most of the long term synoptic activity will occur in the South Pacific as a series of tropical lows pull off the monsoon trough, with one or two likely to develop into Tropical Cyclones. At this stage it’s still too early to pin down the specifics however the middle to latter part of next week is looking at some small to moderate long range E/NE energy across Southern NSW, with further swell expected beyond this too.
The Tasman Sea also looks a little unstable in the model runs for next week though there’s no definitive sign of any major swell generating systems. However, there is certainly many of the required ingredients, and I’m confident we’ll be looking at some punchy mid range swell from a local weather system at some point during the week. So, let’s take a closer look on Friday to see how it’s all shaping up.
Comments
Back to summer again
Noticing the accuracy of Swellnet reports and forecasts are dropping. Maybe its the format and the reports span a wide area but for the South Coast in particular the daily reports, recaps and forecasts have been seen to be over stating the conditions consistently. Not much transparency in who and where the reports are made, and the lack of the standard daily pictures highlight the fake news. Will often check out Cronulla up to Newcastle reports to get a bit more insight.
Maybe its to drive click traffic for the advertisers or maybe its a lack of reporters wanting to get up and check the conditions early - appears as though most early reports are written the night before and are a carbon copy of the forecast.. and unfortunately are typically off the mark.
Bit of a rant fuelled by the bad summer surf but hopefully this feedback can be used to improve the service and get Swellnet back to being a preferred surf report and not something crew scoff at.
Haha.. Hmm I tell you what sharky I didn't pick up on what you have but I do enjoy a over enthusiastic morning report from someone.
And it's nice when they throw in some insite to the days takings and possibilitys... Nothing better than a Good morning Vietnam report to get the day going.
The surf reports are just fine. There’s been plenty of good waves this summer. You can’t expect a bloke to go and check every end of every beach in town before you’ve gotten out of bed. If you pay particular attention to where the daily photos are actually being taken and where the report is being based on you will probably realise that it may being overfrothed because that particular beach rarely gets good waves. You could even put your hand up to provide the surf report each morning?
Happy to take all and any feedback on board. I do need to point out a few things though:
1) The Illawarra coast (assuming this is where you are, as we don't have surf reports south from here) has seen quite a few recent swells underperform compared to the Sydney/Hunter coast. Even our intra-office banter (Craig is on the Northern Beaches, Stu is in the Illawarra) has shown major difference in local surf conditions/wave heights for each swell. Not sure on the underlying reasons though the actual size/conditions are also dependent on where you check the surf.. sometimes there can be significant variations across even small stretches of coast. Anyway, point being - the Forecaster Notes are a broad product for a diverse coastline. You won't get the same result everywhere.
2) The notion that we may be exaggerating surf reports to "drive up traffic" is ludicrous. Swellnet's business revoles around organic reputation (we don't advertise) so we only stand to lose traffic if the quality of our service dips. So, there's not much incentive for us to talk things up, as it'll only negatively affect us in the long run.
3) None of our surf reports are uploaded "the night before" - we don't have the ability to forward-publish reports. They are alll produced on the day.
South swells underperforming in the Illawarra is certainly not a recent phenomenon...
Even some east and north-east swells though too, which is much less common (diff in surf size/quality etc).
keep up the good work anyway mate, love the site which is why i'm a subscriber. cheers.
After moving from Bondi to Kiama I've certainly noticed this over last 18months.
But we over perform on the NE ones...
Are you sure you're on the right website?--because what you complain about has definitely been happening over at Coastalwatch; the morning's report is posted at 5:15am, before anyone can see anything on their cams, and is obviously a cut-and-paste from the Coastalwatch forecast, and then is updated at 9 or 10am with a more-or-less accurate report. I have nothing but praise for Swellnet's reports and forecasts.
I was about to say the same thing haha.. Coastalwatch forecast and reports are so cooked its a joke! Swellnet is on the money!
I’d be happy to write up for Maroubra specifically ? I’m down there every morning anyhow, miss the days of a Maroubra only report instead of ‘eastern beaches’ which is basically just bondi