Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 1st August)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri/Sat: small south swell, though not very big nor very consistent, and with tricky winds Friday. Next week: small E/NE groundswell, mainly offshore winds. 

Recap: Long period southerly swell provided very nice waves on Tuesday, generally in the 2-3ft range at south facing beaches though some bigger waves were observed at the more reliable south swell magnets. Conditions were clean with offshore winds. This swell eased rapidly overnight, leaving most beaches tiny to flat, and rare 1.5ft sets at south facing beaches. A slight increase appears to have occurred late this afternoon, and MHL’s Sydney wave buoy has seen swell periods increase - but it's still very small at most beaches.

This week (Aug 2 - 3)

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The final low/front this current series pushed through eastern Bass Strait this morning. Although it’s not initially very well aligned for our coast, a small secondary cut-off low to the south will merge with the main low this afternoon, and push NE through the Tasman Sea. It’s still not in an ideal region for swell generation but it will maintain small southerly swells through the next few days. 

However, a developing ridge of high pressure off the coast will strengthen northerly winds through Friday, which will cause some problems locally. As such, Thursday is your best chance for a wave - this new swell is expected to build (and peak) overnight, before easing through the day - wave heights should manage 2ft sets, maybe 2-3ft early morning at south facing beaches if you're lucky - but it’ll trend down throughout the day. 

We may see a few bigger waves in the Hunter, however anywhere not open to the south will be considerably smaller, with tiny to flat conditions in southern corners. 

Conditions should be clean through Thursday morning, ahead of a N/NE trend into the afternoon that’ll strengthen overnight. Whilst this fetch looks reasonably strong and robust within our near swell window, it’s expected to be more north than north-east in direction, which will significantly affect our size potential as a windswell source.

Locations south of Sydney will be in a better position to capitalise in the size department but we'll probably be lucky to see 1-2ft of NE windswell at NE swell magnets through Friday north of Wollongong, along with a comparable level of southerly swell (bigger near 2ft to maybe 2-3ft across the Hunter, though very inconsistent). 

Therefore, keep your expectations low on Friday as we’re only looking at a small mix of swells with tricky winds that are more likely to be unfavourable than anything else. 

This weekend (Aug 4 - 5)

The final round of small southerly swell from the developing fetch(es) in the lower Tasman Sea on Thursday will push through for Saturday. Again, I’m not expecting a lot of size, barely an inconsistent 1-2ft at south facing beaches in Sydney, up to 2ft+ across the Hunter, but with long breaks between the sets.

A gusty W’ly change is expected to cross the coast overnight Friday. Model guidance has sped up the timing, and it’s not likely to hit mid-late evening (before midnight) which has a bearing on our NE windswell potential for Saturday morning, originating from Friday's strengthening local flow. 

If the W'ly change were to arrive just before dawn, we’d likely see an early peak in size, and a downwards trend from mid-late morning. But, that downwards trend will now kick in well before sunrise so I’m not very confident that there’ll be anything worthwhile by the time the sun comes up. Let’s peg size around 1-2ft at reliable NE swell magnets in Sydney, and keep our expectations appropriately low (though conditions will be nice and clean with offshore winds).

The associated front exiting eastern Bass Strait in the early hours of Saturday morning will generate a brief, small flush of south swell but it’ll probably arrive overnight Saturday and then trend down before sunrise Sunday. So I’m not expecting much new south swell this weekend, other than the remnants of the Thurs/Fri south swell as mentioned above. 

Sunday’s winds will initially be light NW but we’ll see N’ly winds redevelop during the day as a front approaches from the west. 

Also worth keeping an eye out for this weekend: a small subtropical low developed north of New Zealand today, performing much better than Monday’s model guidance indicated (which suggested a slowly developing trough through the second half of this week). 

However, it’s tracking to the east, away from our swell window and its short fetch length will probably surpress any swell potential. But, it’s sitting in a nice part of our swell window and in the absence of any other swell sources, we may see some small intermittent energy out of the E/NE from Sunday onwards. I’m not expecting much size (and the models have nought until Monday, even then just 0.2m at 9.7 seconds) but it’s worth highlighting as a possible small sneaky swell source for reliable swell magnets. 

Next week (Aug 6 onwards)

Most of next week will be characterised by fresh offshore winds as a series of cold fronts ride high through the Bight.

This usually results in little south swell, thanks to the forecast position of the Long Wave Trough which anticipates its downward flank will be over eastern Australia, steering swell generating activity away from our south swell window. However, small flukey south swells originating from Bass Strait can’t be ruled out - I just can’t see anything to aim for at the moment.

The subtropical low north of New Zealand over the coming days is expected to merge with the small front/low in the Tasman Sea sometime this weekend, and will form an impressive system immediately E/NE of New Zealand’s North Island.

However, much of this development is expected to occur inside NZ’s swell shadow (see chart below for an example) - so I’m very cautious on our swell prospects at this stage. It looks like a great system in individual snapshots, but I really think if you want to maximise your surf potential next week, you’ll be better off aiming for a road trip to SE Qld. 

That being said, we should see at least some small background E/NE swell through the week. It’s just a little too early to pin down the specifics - I’ll take a closer look on Friday.