Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 5th September)

Best Days: Fri: peaky NE swell with mainly light winds through the morning. 

Recap: Tuesday was terrible across Southern NSW with plenty of SE swell and moderate to fresh onshore winds. Winds eased overnight and have remained light in strength today, offering lumpy but workable waves, easing from 3-4ft to 3ft at exposed beaches throughout the day.

This week (Sep 6 - 7)

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Freshening NE winds will create a few problems throughout Thursday.

We should kick off the morning with mainly light winds and generally 2ft, perhaps 2-3ft of easing SE swell at exposed beaches (that’ll ease further during the day), but the wind will swing N/NE early and freshen by lunchtime, becoming gusty into the afternoon.

As the wind continues to strengthen, by late afternoon we should see 2-3ft+ sets at reliable NE swell magnets, though it’ll be smaller at south facing beaches and through the Northern Hunter. Don't expect much quality in the surf department with these accompanying winds though.

Friday morning looks like a much better opportunity for fun surf.

Thursday's N/NE flow will hold until about midnight, when an approaching trough will gradually swing it to a lighter NW for the early Friday session, ahead of a variable period through late morning and lunchtime, preceding an afternoon southerly change. The timing on these kinds of troughs can be tricky to pin down so I’m not especially confident in the wind (model guidance has the southerly into Wollongong mid-late afternoon, but this could be sped up).

Either way, we’ll see easing NE swell throughout the day, biggest early morning with peaky 2-3ft+ sets at NE swell magnets and smaller surf elsewhere as per Thursday afternoon. 

Also in the mix on Friday will be some small E’ly swell from a fetch exiting western Cook Strait today. No major size is expected but we’ll see the odd 2ft+ set at times beneath the pre-existing NE swell.

This weekend (Sep 8 - 9)

Looks like a tricky weekend ahead.

Friday’s trough is expected to stall off the Mid North Coast into Saturday, and there’s been a few curveball upgrades in the latest model runs - which, if the trend continues - will end up delivering a punchy round of local swell and problematic winds for the first half of the weekend at least. The image below shows GFS which is currently progging a rather mild event, and I expect this to be upgraded/intensified over the coming days as we draw closer to the weekend.

This local wind/weather is a shame as the small E’ly groundswell expected late Friday should perk up into Saturday, very inconsistent at times but offering the odd 2-3ft set at exposed beaches. However the upside is that we could be looking at a much more significant locally sourced swell event.

Right now winds look like they’ll be potentially fresh onshore north from the Illawarra (lighter south from here) so let’s take a closer pass on Friday (I’ll update in the comments below too as more information comes to hand, on Thursday).

As for Sunday - the most likely outcome at this stage (given the divergent model guidance) is a smaller, less windy version of whatever we see Saturday. Though there’ll still be some small, inconsistent underlying E’ly swell from that fetch exiting western Cook Strait, which is expected to remain active all the way through into Friday morning. 

Next week (Sep 10 onwards)

A series of modest fronts pushing into the lower Tasman Sea on Sunday should generate some small south swell for early next week. A series of much more aggressive fronts and lows in the Southern Ocean are then expected to generate larger southerly swells through the latter part of next week and the following weekend.

More on this in Friday’s update.