Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 2nd March)

Best Days: Sat: get in early before the S'ly swell fades completely. Best through the Hunter. Tues/Wed/Thurs: building short range SE swell from a possible ECL, potentially very large though wind-affected and very wet.

Recap: Building SE swells on Thursday were accompanied by moderate to fresh southerly winds, so conditions were sub-standard at exposed beaches, but size reached 3-5ft through the afternoon. Today we’ve seen slightly smaller but much cleaner morning round of easing SE and steady S’ly swell around 3-4ft. Winds are now around to the S/SE.

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

This weekend (Mar 3 - 4)

Not a lot of great surf for the weekend, but there’ll be small waves. 

Today’s swell combo will ease into Saturday, and a small low off the SW tip of New Zealand today will generate a small flush of S/SE for Sunday that won’t so much provide an increase in size, as arrest the easing trend. 

South facing beaches should see 2-3ft sets on Saturday morning - mainly between Sydney and the Hunter - with smaller surf elsewhere. These exposed beaches will ease to 1-2ft during the day. Wave heights will largely hold around this size range through Sunday though we may see a few bigger sets from the new swell at reliable swell magnets into the afternoon. Don’t hold your breath though.

As for conditions, a weak southerly change will slide up the coast during Sunday morning. Prior to this, Saturday will see early light variable winds tending N/NE and freshening into the afternoon. Sunday morning should see the southerly change nosing through the Illawarra, but perhaps not Southern Sydney, however by mid-late morning it’ll be through the Northern Beaches and the lower Hunter, before reaching Newcastle around lunchtime. 

So, early Sunday morning should offer a peaky mix of small clean swells ahead of the change, including some minor NE wind waves at exposed beaches. Expect blowy southerly-affected surf through the afternoon with a small rise in short range southerly windswell at south facing beaches. 

Next week (Mar 5 onwards)

In Wednesday’s notes I mentioned a small E’ly groundswell due early next week, from a low north of New Zealand later this week. 

It’s still expected to develop but the small size (2ft, maybe 2-3ft through Mon PM and Tues) will result in it being greatly overshadowed by a much more significant local system.

And that is: the weekend’s southerly change will be associated with a surface trough, which is expected to stall just below the Mid North Coast on Sunday, freshening southerly winds through our short range swell window as a Tasman Low develops in the central/southern Tasman Sea. 

This system looks very interesting as it appears as though it’ll retrograde to the west as it strengthens, bringing strong onshore winds, very large surf and plenty of rain to Southern NSW. 

At this stage Monday and Tuesday will mainly see low quality, short range swell increasing across the coast, but from late Tuesday through Wednesday and possibly Thursday we’re looking at a large ECL-type system (yes, it may end up ticking the correct classification boxes) with exposed beaches - particularly those between Sydney and Ulladulla - seeing strong SE swells upwards of 8ft+. 

Indeed our model has 10ft surf on Thursday morning (5.2m @ 10.4 seconds, due SE) which seems about right given the synoptic setup. However it’s still early days, and if we see a slight tweak in the orientation or strength of this low, it’ll have a dramatic affect on surf potential.

Anyway, much of this is academic because those locations likely to see the most size will also be very wind affected from the close proximity of the low. Early indications suggest there may be an outflow north of the axis of the low, which could be from Sydney through to the Hunter region. Whether we see S/SW, SW or W/SW winds across these regions remains to be seen (significant local systems like this often produce major variations in the coastal wind field, compared to model guidance). But for now, if you're looking to head up the highway looking for waves, north will be a better recommendation than south. 

Anyway, it’s an active period ahead - I’ll have a much more comprehensive update this system on Monday. 

Have a great weekend! (also, if you’re in Sydney on Saturday night, come down to 107 Redfern St, my band’s playing a gig.. more deets here).