Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 26th February)

Best Days: Tues PM as winds ease. Wed AM with early light winds. Thurs dawn with light winds. Fri: should see fun periods throughout the day. Sat: early before the swell eases. 

Recap: Saturday didn’t offer a lot of goodness, with freshening northerly winds and a peaky mix of leftover SE swells. Sunday saw an early peak in NE windswell as expected, and although winds went southerly before dawn, they remained light until about 9am, before developing plenty of strength late morning and into the afternoon. As such the dawn patrol had some fun though otherwise lumpy waves. Today has been a write-off with gusty S/SE winds - stronger than expected - and they’ve consequently whipped up a strong local swell on top of an underlying southerly groundswell. 

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This week (Feb 27 - Mar 2)

With the ridge stalled across our swell window for the last 24 hours, we’ve seen more short range windswell than was expected in Friday’s model guidance. 

Although the trough along the Mid North Coast is tracking into northern regions, weakening the ridge across our coast, we’ll see lingering sets through Tuesday. Plus, a new low is forming along the trough line in the south-eastern Tasman Sea, which is a major geographical revision to last week’s model runs that expected it to develop in the central/northern Tasman Sea. 

The upshot is great for Southern NSW surfers, as it develops the fetch much better within our swell window. We won’t see too much of a size variation this week, generally holding around 3-5ft early Tuesday easing to 3-4ft by lunchtime, holding a similar size Wednesday, with a kick in strength around Thursday as longer period energy from the core of the Tasman Low makes landfall.

It’s worth noting that the swell models seem to be replicating the same problem we saw with last Thurs/Fri's SE swell (from what was a similar system, in a similar region of our swell window). And that is: it’s majorly undercalling the size, estimating just 0.6m @ 10.3 seconds early Thursday, increasing to 0.8m by late afternoon. Our model pegs this around 1-2ft, which is very small indeed from what looks like a tasty Tasman low.

So, whilst learning from last week’s mistakes, we need to be careful not to overshoot the estimate as a form of compensation. This low develops in a different manner to last week’s low, has slightly strong (modeled) core winds but with a narrower fetch and it doesn’t hang around for quite as long either. Gut feel is that we’re probably looking at inconsistent 3-5ft sets from this swell (certainly not quite as long lined and powerful as last week’s swell) but some reliable swell magnets may pick up the occasional bigger bomb into the afternoon. Early morning may see smaller surf around dawn just prior to the new energy filling in properly. 

As for conditions: local winds look tricky on Tuesday with a lingering though easing S/SE airstream across many coasts. A couple of coasts (and most regions south from the Illawarra) may even see a light early offshore though it’ll take some time to clean up properly from today’s messy conditions. 

Wednesday will see early light winds tending N/NE and strengthening ahead of an approaching southerly change. These winds should generate a small windswell for Thursday morning.

Thursday morning looks good at first, with winds veering NW ahead of the southerly change, due into the Sydney coast around early-mid morning a little later through the Hunter (likely to be into the Illawarra coast around dawn). So, local surface conditions will probably be challenging after lunch. Let's hope that the swell kicks in early so you can capitalise on the early favourable winds. 

In addition to the building SE swells Thursday, we’ll also see building S’ly windswells in the wake of the change after lunch. Southern corners will be your best bet. 

On Friday, we’ll see rapidly easing SE swells however a small low may form east of Bass Strait Thursday (in the wake of the change); not so much providing a strong new swell source to finish the week, but maintaining the southerly flow off the Far South Coast at strength. This should therefore keep short range southerly swell holding 3-5ft throughout Friday. Winds will remain out of the south but ease on Friday with a few regions seeing localised SW winds. 

So.. there’ll be surf every day but with tricky winds. Later Tuesday (as the wind eases), Wednesday morning, the dawn patrol Thursday and then periods on Friday look like your best bet for waves. 

This weekend (Mar 2 - 3)

Light winds are expected this weekend but with no new swell sources, we’re looking at steadily easing southerly swells from Friday.

This could see early 3ft+ sets across south facing beaches but it’ll likely be down to around 2ft during the day, with smaller surf expected on Sunday.

Next week (Mar 4 onwards)

Nothing much is expected early next week but the models have come fruity progs for the super long range outlook into the end of next week and beyond. It’s only fantasy stuff right now, but worth a squiz.