Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 14th September)

Best Days: Sun: a little wind affected, but plenty of south swell. Mon: Smaller, cleaner south swell with morning offshores. 

Recap: Small waves have persisted for the last few days, with size up to a weak 1-2ft though very inconsistent. Winds were S’ly through Thursday and went light this morning ahead of an afternoon NE breeze. 

Baby waves at Maroubra this morning

This weekend (Sep 15 - 16)

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

Today’s freshening NE winds will whip up a small windswell for Saturday morning but it won’t amount to much in the size or strength department. A small undercurrent of persistent E’ly swell may also provide occasional 1-2ft waves at exposed beaches but it’s going to be a struggle to find anything of value. 

However, conditions will clean up with an approaching front swinging winds to the NW during the morning, then W'ly throughout the afternoon. The surf will be best suited to lightweight grommets. 

Saturday's approaching front looks like it’ll be quite vigorous across Tasmanian latitudes and through Bass Strait, of which a broad SW fetch developing off the eastern Tasmanian and southern NSW coasts will build S’ly swells through Sunday, peaking around 4ft at south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter though smaller elsewhere).

Winds will become gusty from the S/SW though a few locations (i.e. Northern Beaches) should see an early window of light W/SW winds around dawn. Overall, those beaches picking up the most size will be wobbly throughout the day. Keep your expectations low for any notable quality, but there’ll be waves if you’re keen. 

Next week (Sep 17 onwards)

Monday looks fun for south facing beaches, with early light offshore winds and sea breezes under the influence of a weak right of high pressure, and easing S’ly swell from 3ft at south facing beaches (again, bigger in the Hunter but smaller elsewhere). Expect slightly smaller surf into the afternoon, ahead of a more rapid drop in size into Tuesday. 

The Southern Ocean storm track will largely steer away from our swell window throughout next week. There’s an interesting upper level system progged to enter the Tasman Sea around Wednesday that could spawn a local swell generating system (and some interesting surf possibilities for Thurs/Fri) but it’s way to early to have any confidence right now, as the models are quite divergent.

Otherwise, we’ll see small levels of E/NE swell all week from a modest trade flow developing north and north-east of New Zealand longitude at the moment. It’s expected to remain active into the start of next week, so we should see a slow building trend from about Tuesday onwards, from 1-2ft to perhaps 2-3ft by Thursday or Friday - but it’ll be very slow and inconsistent at best. Certainly not worth getting your hopes up about.

That’s about it: it’s quite a benign pattern right now with nothing of any great interest standing up in the charts. Hang in there! It can only get better from here. 

Have a great weekend!