Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 31st October)

Best Days: Sat: small peaky NE swell early. Sun: large S'ly groundswell with mainly light winds and sea breezes (risk of a lingering onshore through the Hunter). 

Recap: Monday’s solid south swell eased into Tuesday though still managed some solid sets through the morning. However, we saw a wide variation of size across small geographical references: for example, Cronulla picked up early 3-4ft sets (see image of Shark Island, below), whilst south swell magnets across the Northern Beaches - locations that usually fall in line with Cronulla - were barely 1-2ft. A new pulse of longer period S’ly groundswell moved up the coast this morning, and although generally coming in at forecast expectations, interestingly reversed Tuesday’s size differential: Cronulla reported at 2ft+ surf, with 2-3ft reported across south swell magnets on the Northern Beaches. Can’t win, eh? As for conditions, Tuesday saw early light winds freshening from the NE in the afternoon, whilst the passage of a trough overnight delivered moderate SW winds this morning, that have gone light onshore this afternoon.

Easing S'ly lines at Shark Island Tuesday morning; northern end of the Bay was even bigger

This week (Nov 1 - 2)

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A smaller though longer period S’ly groundswell will glance the coast on Thursday, generated by a strong polar low south of WA earlier this week. It was poorly aligned for our region, but still displayed a good fetch within a remote, acute part of our far south swell window.

It’s too early to monitor the leading edge of this swell across Southern NSW (and anyway, the Eden buoy is on the fritz), but the Cape Sorell buoy off Tasmania’s West Coast has picked up this energy nicely today and the data lends a small degree of confidence that we’ll see something across our region on Thursday.

However, it’ll be exclusive to south swell magnets - mainly those north from Sydney into the Hunter - so expect very small conditions at most beaches. Reliable south swell magnets will hopefully pull in the odd 2ft+ set; and with some lucky we’ll be pleasantly surprised with the odd bigger bomb. But with extremely long breaks between waves it'll be hard to find the enthusiasm to sniff out something worthwhile.

Also, the other problem we have is that the swell is not modelled to reach our coast until lunchtime, so the early session will likely be undersized. And just as the (forecast) swell fills in, we’re also likely to see freshening NE winds for the afternoon. So, this may thwart any chance of a sneaky session. I suppose there’s a chance for an earlier-than-expected arrival of the swell, of which favourable light winds are forecast before lunch. Keep your expectations low.

Thursday's southerly swell will ease through Friday, and we’re looking at freshening N’ly winds, probably NW through the early morning. Thursday’s late breeze may generate some small, low quality windswell but it won’t be worth working around, and I doubt the residual south swell will have much schtick. So, don’t get excited about your end-of-week surf prospects.

This weekend (Nov 3 - 4)

An approaching front and low of considerable strength on Friday will strengthening northerly winds overnight into the start of the weekend, generating a small peaky NE swell for Saturday morning.

Winds will veer NW (subsequently shutting on the swell tap) but we may see a brief period of 2ft, perhaps 2-3ft sets at reliable NE swell magnets, with clean conditions. I’ll revise this more closely on Friday but it looks like an early session will be worthwhile. A late S/SE change is possible as a pre-frontal trough pushed up the coast. 

The parent low and front will cross Tasmanian longitudes during the day, and although poorly aimed for our coast (see below), will still be a major system with a broad area of gale to storm force winds pushing into the lower Tasman Sea. Had this fetch been meridionally (north-south) aligned, we’d have been looking at 12-15ft+ surf without question. But, swing the angle of this system progressively clockwise and watch the wave height estimation throttle back: our model is expecting 3-5ft at south facing beaches around Sunday lunchtime.

In actual fact, I reckon our model estimate is a slight undercall. We should see a brief period of sets pushing 4-6ft at south facing beaches during the day (much smaller elsewhere though, as per the usual south swell caveats), though the long swell periods will exaggerate surf size at offshore bombies and through the Hunter to 6-8ft. It's going to be one of those flukey south swell events that will probably deliver way more misses than hits. But those hits will be hard, and heavy. 

Winds look OK, but there is a risk of a lingering onshore as Saturday’s late trough passage stalls off the Northern NSW Coast. This risk will probably be confined to the Hunter and Central Coast regions, with light variable wind expected from Sydney south to the border. In fact, afternoon sea breezes are likely here too.

So, it looks very dynamic this weekend - I’ll take a better pass on the specifics on Friday. 

Next week (Nov 5th onwards)

Easing southerly swells are expected through the start of next week, and a local NE flow will generate building NE windswells through Monday afternoon and Tuesday as another strong front approaches from the south-west.