Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 4th April)

Best Days: Sat PM, Sun: fun south swell at exposed south facing beaches. Mon/Tues: fun south swell though tricky winds. Tues Am probably the pick at this stage. Later next week: strong Tasman Low on the cards. 

Recap: Easing E/SE swells have provided small conditions across the Southern NSW coast for the last few days. Light northerly winds Thursday swung NW this morning, and have strengthened from the west this afternoon, gusting 30kts across the Northern Beaches.

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This weekend (May 5 - 6)

No change to the weekend forecast. Winds are looking to be light offshore so conditions will be clean, and we’ve got a flukey, directional south swell on the way, generated by a vigorous frontal passage through Bass Strait.

And just because I love data, I’ll focus your attention towards Hogan Island, sitting in the middle of Bass Strait due E/SE of Wilsons Promontory, where wind gusts were 62kts (115km/hr) a short time ago. This is well above model expectations though won’t influence my thinking for the weekend's surf outlook, due to the tricky source of the incoming swell (that being: westerly gales exiting eastern Bass Strait).

So, we’re essentially looking at a building south swell through Saturday - probably not visible to any major degree early morning, north from the Illawarra - reaching a peak into the afternoon with 2-3ft sets at most south facing beaches, and pushing closer to 4ft across exposed Hunter beaches. Locations not exposed to the south will be much smaller. And, we often see most of the South Coast underperform during these swells so don't be surprised if it's relatively smaller south from the Illawarra.

Surf size may level out a little into Sunday but should hold a similar size range into Sunday, perhaps a little less consistent and just a smidge smaller, and there’ll be lully periods throughout the day too. But with favourably light winds we should have some fun waves on offer again at south swell magnets. 

Next week (May 7 onwards)

The weekend’s swells will originate from a strong frontal progression through Bass Strait. At the same time, a larger trailing secondary front in the Southern ocean will push south of Tasmania, with a broader, stronger fetch - albeit poorly aligned within our swell window. 

This will generate a couple of days of flukey south swell for Southern NSW; it’s hard to ignore the size and strength of this low pressure system though it really isn’t very well angled within our swell window. 

As such we’ll see a wide variation in size across the coast. Following a period of downtime between pulses early Monday, surf size should rebuild up into the 2-3ft range at south facing beaches with the Hunter Coast again likely to see occasional 4ft sets. This size range should persist through Tuesday morning before easing into the afternoon. Set waves will be very inconsistent too. And beaches not exposed to the south will be much smaller. 

Conditions look a little tricky both of these days, with a shallow front approaching from the south (unrelated to the Southern Ocean low). This will freshen N’ly winds early Monday before they swing NW into the afternoon as the new south swell rebuilds. Early W’ly winds on Tuesday will then veer to the south by lunchtime as the front clips the region though current indications are it won’t be very strong and won’t last too long either. Let’s take a closer look on Monday. 

The long term outlook has a few swell sources on the cards. A slightly better aligned Southern Ocean low passing south of Tasmania around Wednesday should generate a decent S’ly swell for the end of the week and into the weekend, but of more interest is a deepening trough off the SE Qld coast mid-week that’s expected to form a deep low pressure system somewhere in the Tasman Sea towards the end of the week. 

Model guidance is split as to where this low will develop, but either way it’s looking like being a very active period of large surf through into next weekend - somewhere along the East Coast.

More on this in Monday’s update.