Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 19th March)

Best Days: Onshores all week but workable options inside protected southern corners mid-late week. Sun: fun combo of easing SE and E/NE swell, with offshore winds.  

Recap: A strong south swell provided great waves on Saturday, generally in the 4ft range across most exposed Sydney beaches but occasionally 4-6ft across the Hunter. This swell eased through Sunday and further into Monday, however we’ve also see a small pulse of new south swell push across the region today, generated by a temporary W/SW fetch exiting eastern Bass Strait on Sunday. 

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Next week (May 20th - 23rd)

Most of this week looks horribly onshore. 

A cold front pushing into the southern Tasman Sea will drive a shallow southerly change across the region on Tuesday, merging with a weak trough currently sitting off the coast (the remnants of yesterday evening’s southerly change). This will initially freshen and then strengthen southerly winds about all coastal regions during the day, though we could see a few isolated regions of light variable winds early morning.

As it is, Tuesday morning won’t see a lot of swell anyway. Today's energy will be on the way out so we're looking at mainly small residual swells from the south. We do have some small long period south swell on the way (from a developing system SW of Tasmania, generating very large surf for Vicco over the coming days) but it won’t arrive until mid-week, and its poor alignment won’t favour any major size across our coast.

Additionally, a small Ely fetch north of New Zealand over the weekend was mainly aimed into SE Qld and by the time the (small) swell makes landfall we’ll be under the influence of a much more dominant local swell.

In fact, we may end up seeing the development of a small closed low (perhaps ECL?) off the Hunter Coast later Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. This may significantly enhance size potential by way of some very strong winds north from Sydney latitudes up to about Newcastle. 

Anyway, the short version is that it’ll be very onshore from Tuesday through the end of the week - even if the closed low doesn’t eventuate, a strong high pressure system well to the south is expected to drive a strong ridge across the entire East Coast and we’re looking at an extended run of gusty onshore winds; S’ly Tuesday tending S/SE then SE through Wednesday, then E/SE thru’ E’ly on Thursday and Friday.

Model guidance has some very impressive figures for the second half of the week (8-10ft! which is likely an overcall) but this will be highly dependent on actual wind strength. In any case, your only rideable options will be at sheltered southern ends. 

And overall, we can expect slightly easing wind strengths as you track further south from the Illawarra.  

This weekend (May 24th - 25th)

The weekend’s looking pretty good at this stage with some good potential for Sunday right now. 

Although the high pressure system directing this strong ridge into the coast all week will break down around Friday (leading to easing winds, and thus easing swell), we have a secondary swell source developing around the same time that’ll maintain moderate SE energy through the weekend. 

It’ll be sourced from a secondary low off the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island, lingering all week but finally aligning nicely within our swell window around Thursday which should give rise to a building SE swell in the 3-5ft range for Saturday (easing slowly Sunday). There’ll also be some leftover short range E’ly energy in the mix early Saturday too. 

Additionally, a strong ridge north and north-east of New Zealand all week will generate some small but useful E/NE swell that’ll also provide decent energy over the weekend. 

Saturday’s winds look a little dicey, lingering from the NE as a result of the mid-week coastal ridge, but should swing NW into Sunday. This is by far the pick of the forecast period right now. 

Next week (May 26th onwards)

Long term prospects remain quite dynamic with a possible Tasman Low in our immediate southern swell window early next week, plus a possible Tropical Cyclone in the Coral Sea this week that may influence the synoptics in our NE swell window early next week too (though, this latter system is a far less confident event). Long term model guidance also has some juicy developments north of New Zealand around the end of the month as next week's Tasman Sea activity merges with the aforementioned tropical activity. It's too far out to really hone in on, but it'll be well worth revisiting up Wednesday's updated notes.

More on this in Wednesday’s update.