Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 28th February)

Best Days: Tues AM: small clean leftovers at exposed south facing beaches. Thurs PM onwards: large S'ly swells though windy conditions.

Recap: Saturday delivered large clean surf with offshore winds and 4-6ft sets across open south facing Sydney beaches. Wave heights were even bigger around 8ft across the Hunter. Size eased slowly throughout Sunday and further into this morning (3ft sets at south facing beaches for the early session), though we’ve seen a slight pulse this afternoon with swell periods increasing a little. Model guidance did indicate a small round of new S/SE swell this afternoon, though no major size was expected from it, as it was sourced from the latter incarnations of last week’s major southerly progression as it redeveloped S and SE of New Zealand. Winds have been generally light for the last few days so conditions have been nice and clean. 

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This week (May 29 - June 1)

Nothing major expected for the next few days.

The weekend’s S’ly swell will bottom out into Tuesday morning, and the small S/SE pulse picked up on the buoys today will fade slowly throughout the day. Exposed south facing beaches (mainly across the Hunter) may see some occasional 2ft+ waves early Tuesday, but by and large it’ll be smaller elsewhere, especially at beaches that don’t face south.  Winds should be light, though out of the northern quadrant if anything.

Overnight Tuesday a front will push through Bass Strait, delivering a fresh SW wind change across Southern NSW that’ll tend S/SW in some regions, mainly the South Coast. Initially, most of the swell generated by it will be average, short range energy - south facing beaches should see some 3ft sets by the end of the day (after starting off much smaller) though they’ll be the most wind affected. Expect much smaller surf elsewhere. 

A stronger front will then round the Tasmanian corner overnight Wednesday, pushing along the NSW with more gusto into Thursday as a low forms at its tail end, somewhere east of Tasmania. This will further increase average, wind affected short range southerly swells across Southern NSW through Thursday though we won’t see any major size until Friday, when the low - with much stronger core winds - will directly impact our region. 

As such Thursday’s probably going to see another foot or two on top of Wednesday but with mainly fresh SW tending S/SW winds, those beaches picking up the most size will be wind affected and everywhere else will be considerably smaller. 

Synoptically, we’ll see a broad Tasman Low develop through Thursday that’ll end up displaying multiple low pressure centres. This is anticipated to be a complex, slow moving system that will occupy our swell window for quite some time.

To that end, Friday is on target to see a large increase in S’ly swell, with much more strength and also stronger accompanying winds too. They’ll remain from the SW tending S/SW at times but could reach 30kts+. South facing beaches won’t be in any short supply of surf though, likely north of 8ft though protected southern ends will offer the only worthwhile opportunities.

This weekend (June 2 - 3)

The Tasman Low forming later this week looks like it’ll kick up several swell sources into the weekend. Friday’s strong swell will ease into Saturday though be replaced by an equally stronger S/SE swell from a secondary low forming well east of Tasmania on Friday. This should maintain easy 8ft+ sets at south facing beaches - perhaps even bigger - though with strong SW tending S/SW winds holding firm across the region.

A somewhat unrelated polar low (see below) forming well south of the Tasman Sea on Thursday will supply underlying S’ly swell right throughout the weekend. However a fourth swell source will develop on Saturday - another small surface low embedded within the broader parent Tasman Low, but this time much closer to New Zealand’s West Coast - which will generate strong SE swells for Sunday. Current model estimates have this being smaller than Saturday though I’d be surprised if wave heights eased below 6ft at exposed beaches.  

More importantly, Sunday is probably the first day where we’ll see a broad scale easing of the local wind field. There’ll certainly be lingering S’ly breezes in places (i.e. across the Hunter) but we’ll see a steady improvement at many coasts. Let’s fine tune the specifics on Wednesday.

Next week (June 4 onwards)

The Tasman Low is expected to weaken slowly towards the end of the weekend and thus we’ll see a gradual easing of swell from the S and SE through the first half of next week. Other than that, there’s nothing else on the long term radar.