Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 3rd September)

Best Days: No great days. Plenty of SE swell Tues/Wed though less than ideal winds. Fun peaky NE swell Fri with light winds and lumpy conditions. Small E'ly swell with light winds Fri/Sat. 

Recap: Residual swells offered a few small though clean waves early Saturday before size faded through day. Developing S’ly winds and building S’ly swells padded out Sunday, and we’ve seen a continuation of strong southerly swell into this morning, though wave heights are a little below forecast expectations. Conditions have generally been bumpy under moderate to fresh S’ly winds, but we did see a reasonable period of early light W/SW winds across the Northern Beaches as expected.

This week (Sep 4 - 7)

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I’m not too impressed by the coming surf this week. 

Today’s south swell is on the way out, and will be replaced through Tuesday and Wednesday by some sideband energy from the SE, generated by a low off New Zealand’s West Coast.

Although it's a strong, slow moving system, the primary fetch is poorly aimed within our swell window. However, I still think there's enough energy to contribute 3-4ft sets to exposed south facing beaches through Tuesday (slightly bigger across the Hunter, but smaller elsewhere), possibly holding into early Wednesday morning though easing by a foot or so throughout the day. 

The main problem over the next 48 hours will be the local winds. It won’t be terribly strong but we will see mainly E/SE breezes on Tuesday, tending lighter and more variable early Wednesday before freshening from the NE into the afternoon. As such, expect lumpy conditions across most open beaches for the most part. It’ll be workable but certainly not worth any flexi-time. For the record, we should see less onshore wind south from the Illawarra on Tuesday (and thus slightly better conditions), though Wednesday afternoon's NE breeze will probably kick in a little stronger than locations further north.

Strengthening N/NE winds on Thursday will accompany a further decrease in size from the SE, though we will also see a concurrent increase in local NE windswell that could reach 3ft+ at NE swell magnets by the late afternoon (albeit low in quality). 

Friday has some interesting possibilities on the cards. A trough is expected to move slowly up the coast and will invariably bring about a southerly change, though no major strength is expected. This trough will however disrupt the local northerly flow overnight Thursday, which will lead to a slow easing of NE windswell into Friday morning - so the key will be to identify the best period of winds (probably just light and variable, so lumpy on the surface) coinciding with the most size. At this stage I’d be aiming for mid-late morning, but I’ll refine the outlook in Wednesday’s notes. Size will ease throughout the day.

One other swell source that may provide some energy Friday is a small but strong fetch of E/SE sales exiting western Cook Strait (between NZ’s South and North Island - see below) around Wednesday. It doesn’t look anything amazing right now but will need to be monitored for a potential upgrade. 

This weekend (Sep 8 - 9)

The weekend doesn't look particularly flash at this stage with the Southern Ocean storm track aimed away from us. Although the South Pacific will develop an series of impressive systems throughout the forecast period - including a real hum-dinger on Friday (anyone up for a quick North Island strike mission?) - they will unfortunately be tucked inside the swell shadow of New Zealand. 

The only real source of swell for Southern NSW will be the aforementioned small E/SE fetch exiting western Cook Strait mid-week. In the absence of any other major energy - which looks quite likely at this stage - we may see some small lingering sets out of the east around 2ft on Saturday morning, easing through the rest of the weekend, and with very long breaks between sets. If we're lucky, there'll be a few small leftover sets from Friday's NE windswell on Saturday morning too, but it won't be very big and won't last long. 

I’ll also be keeping a watch on the remnants of Friday’s trough, which is expected to push into the central Tasman Sea on Saturday. Model guidance doesn’t suggest anything worthwhile but again, but this needs to be monitored closely over the coming days as we may see a small mid-range SE swell arrive during the day - and a further consolidation could result in a reaosnable swell generating system. Fingers crossed anyway. 

Next week (Sep 10 onwards)

At this stage the long term charts have no notable swells on the horizon. Let’s check back on Wednesday to see if the outlook has changed.