Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 16th July)

Best Days: Tues: chance for a flukey east swell (best prospects down south). Wed: small S'ly swell, best in the a'noon. Sat/Sun: strong, easing S'ly swell with good winds. 

Recap: Large waves filled out across Sydney beaches on Saturday, around 6-8ft at south facing beaches, and light offshore winds maintained clean conditions. Size eased through Sunday though still managed plenty of size early, around 4-5ft. We’ve seen a further drop to 3ft this morning with similarly clean conditions. A new pulse of flukey E’ly swell has yet to be observed at the buoys or surfcams across Southern NSW. 

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This week (July 17 - 20)

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Today’s southerly swell is on the way out, with only small residual energy expected into Tuesday. 

Last week, I discussed a flukey E’ly swell that was due to arrive very late today, and then peak overnight before easing through Tuesday, with the Far South Coast expected to see the most size (and smaller wave heights as you track north, ie into the Illawarra, Sydney and Newcastle regions). 

We’ve got a couple of methods of assessing this swell (once it makes landfall) via surfcams, manual observations and buoy data. Unfortunately, all three lack coverage where it matters most for this particular event - in the Far South - and the best detection tool (the Eden buoy) is offline at the moment. We don’t have much coverage in Eastern Tasmania either (where the observations could be interpolated further north) so we’re essentially flying blind on this one.

Model data didn’t really have the leading edge due into Sydney until around dinner time tonight, so the current lack of energy doesn’t bother me. 

However, as mentioned on Friday, not only is the swell source flukey - the fetch was south of Sydney latitudes, and aimed slightly away from our swell window, requiring the swell to spread angularly back into Southern NSW - estimating the precise size for each stretch of coastline is difficult, because eventual wave heights will largely come down to local bathymetrical effects.

Anyway, this will be our primary swell source into Tuesday, so without any evidence to the contrary - yet - there’s no point deviating away from Friday’s estimates, which were for inconsistent 2-3ft sets across reliable Sydney/Hunter beaches, with bigger surf as you work your way south from the Illawarra. Winds will be offshore so conditions will be clean. 

Otherwise, we're looking at a patchy rest of the week for Southern NSW surfers. A brief but vigorous front will  exit eastern Bass Strait later Tuesday, delivering a brief flush of south swell for Wednesday - possibly not in the water at first light, but filling in by the middle of the day and providing 2ft+ sets across south facing beaches, occasionally 3ft+ through the Hunter by late afternoon. Again, expect clean conditions with light offshore winds. This swell will be all but gone by Thursday lunchtime (just a few small leftovers at south swell magnets early morning). 

The storm track will then veer away from our swell window for the rest of the week, with strengthening N/NW winds late Thursday and Friday unlikely to generate much more than a minor N’ly windswell for the South Coast to finish the working week. A very strong front is expected to cross the coast late Friday and may delivery squally NW tending SW winds to end the day but this system is unlikely to deliver new southerly swell until Saturday (though, I’ll keep a watch on this for Wednesday’s notes).

This weekend (July 21 - 22)

The front entering the lower Tasman Sea late Friday will kick up a strong south swell overnight that’s expected to be a short lived event, and will therefore ease steadily through Saturday. Early morning could see some rare 4-6ft sets at south swell magnets but it’ll lose a foot or two throughout the day. Winds will veer back to the W/SW so conditions will be clean. Surf size will be much smaller at beaches not open to the south. 

Wave heights will ease into Sunday, but they won’t completely bottom out - a secondary front south of Tasmania (on Fri/Sat) will contributes some small mid-range S’ly swell for south facing beaches. With light variable winds throughout there’ll be some fun south swell on offer, not too dissimilar to the last few days. 

So, to be honest this weekend is looking like a 70% version of the weekend just passed. As such it should be relatively easy to dial in the same coordinates as before, and hopefully you'll pick up a similar round of quality south swell.

Next week (July 23 onwards)

Nothing major standing out at this stage. The current broadscale pattern suggests an upper level block that’ll result in a steep downwards size trend early next week, ahead of a resurgence in southerly swell mid-late next week. More on that in Wednesday’s update.