Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 18th April)

Best Days: Most days will have good waves, though Thursday will see the largest surf, Saturday the smallest.

Recap: Tuesday saw strong  building S’ly swells though early light SW winds gave way to developing onshores throughout the day. Wave heights reached 4-6ft across south facing beaches into the afternoon, and have eased slowly today with much better conditions under a light variable wind regime.

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This week (Mar 17th - 20th)

Our current S’ly swell will continue to ease into Thursday, but a new long period S’ly swell will push up through the morning, generated by a polar low south of Tasmania earlier this week.

This is expected to kick south facing beaches back up into the 4-6ft range though the bigger waves will be much less consistent than what we have seen over the last 36 hours, owing to a more distant swell source. 

I’m also expecting the swell periods to draw out a little more - closer to 15 seconds - and this should amplify surf size at offshore bombies, and across the Hunter, somewhere around 8ft or more at times (though they’ll be quite inconsistent). 

Away from south facing beaches, expect much smaller surf. Conditions should be clean for most of the day with mainly light variable winds early on, tending light to moderate N’ly, probably not enough to cause any major problems. 

Thursday’s south swell will likely reach a peak around the middle of the day and taper off into the afternoon, before easing more rapidly through Friday. South facing breaches may see some early 3-4ft sets but it’ll be half the size by the afternoon, and other beaches will be even smaller (the Hunter should pick up some bigger waves though). 

A weak trough should keep light variable winds across the region though we may see a moderate southerly creep into a few places at times. Overall, very worthwhile for a surf at any time of the day. 

This weekend (Mar 21st - 22nd)

Smaller southerly swells are expected into Saturday as this event fades out, though conditions should be workable with light winds under the influence of the trough, possibly onshore at times but without any strength. South facing beaches won’t see much more than 2ft sets (bigger through the Hunter) and it’ll be smaller elsewhere. 

Sunday has a renewal of S’ly swell from a fresh polar low/front developing well SW of New Zealand on Thursday and Friday. It’s a broad system but poorly aligned within our swell window, however I do like the longevity of the fetch in the Southern Ocean and as a result I think we’ll see a broad spread of S’ly tending S/SE swell through Sunday that should deliver 3ft, maybe 3-4ft sets at south facing beaches, bigger across the Hunter though much smaller at most beaches that don’t have favourable southerly exposure. 

Again, there’s a risk of an onshore breeze under Sunday’s troughy pattern but I don’t think it’ll amount to much. So, expect relatively good surfing conditions.

Next week (Mat 23rd onwards) 

Easing southerly swells are expected on Monday with continuing light winds. 

The long range outlook remains favourable, with Monday’s prediction for an unstable troughy pattern across the eastern Tasman Sea still on track. In fact there’s some pretty crazy model guidance for next weekend (15-18ft E’ly swell?), though this will no doubt be pulled back considerably in future model updates. 

For now, we can expect an extended period of activity from our mid range eastern swell window, starting off with some NE swell around the middle of the week, tending E’ly then SE as a trough evolves into some kind of Tasman Low through the second half of the week, likely some some dicey wind too.

It’s still a long time away though so don’t make an early travel plans.