Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 28th January)

Best Days: Stacks of NE swell all week, best Thurs AM. Fun weekend mid range E'ly swell, best Sun with light winds. Long term looking dynamic in the South Pacific too. 

Recap: Saturday’s NE swell came in slightly under budget around 2ft, but pulsed into Sunday with 2-3ft sets at NE facing beaches. A long range S/SE groundswell built throughout the day, and we’ve had a couple of isolated reports of 3ft+ surf at some exposed spots, but most south facing beaches saw surf size pushing a very inconsistent 2-3ft. Early light offshore winds swung S’ly around the middle of the day. Today saw the S/SE groundswell hold steady at some beaches (though not all) with morning 3ft sets easing throughout the day. Early light winds swung moderate S’ly throughout the day. 

This week (Jan 29 - Feb 1)

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Today’s S/SE swell will ease steadily into Tuesday so I’m not expecting much size from this region.

However, we do have plenty of waves on the way. A stationary Tasman high will freshen N/NE winds about the coast this week, slowly building NE windswells from Tuesday into Thursday. To begin with, surf size will be a little undersized early Tuesday around 2ft+ but should reach 3-4ft by Thursday. Expect smaller surf all week at south facing beaches, and across the northern Hunter. 

Local winds on Tuesday and Wednesday don’t look great; we may see brief periods of lighter N’ly winds early mornings, but for the most part it’ll be fresh and therefore surface conditions will be bumpy and wind affected. Water temps will probably take another dive too.

On Thursday, an approaching southerly change will see winds ease rapidly in the morning and become variable under a trough, and with size holding a good 4ft at NE facing beaches early morning, we should see slightly lumpy but improving and otherwise very fun waves at most beaches. Size will however ease throughout the day. 

The southerly change is due into the South Coast on Thursday afternoon and will reach Sydney overnight, driving fresh S/SE winds into the region for Friday, though it’ll ease steadily during the day. 

As such, to finish the week we should see plenty of local southerly windswell in the lee of the change, with size around 3-4ft. Quality won't be high but at least it'll provide some surf to those south facing beaches that have dipped out under the persistent NE pattern of late.

Although the NE and S/SE windswells will be the dominant energies this week, we do have a couple of other areas to keep a watch on. 

An intense Southern Ocean low will pass just south of Tasmania on Monday, but it looks poorly aligned within our swell window. The models have long period S’ly groundswell glancing our coast later Tuesday (South Coast) and Wednesday (remaining coasts) with peak swell periods in the 17-18 second range, but I don’t think there’ll be much size at most beaches - a small handful of reliable south swell magnets may pick up stray 2-3ft sets if we're super lucky, but on the whole, I really wouldn’t value this as a reliable swell source in any way shape or form. 

Elsewhere, the trades are expected to slowly redevelop over the coming week though I doubt this will be a prominent source for swell for some time (detailed below).

Additionaly, a forecast sub-tropical low developing NE of New Zealand this week has been erased by the computer models over the weekend, so even though it wasn't viewed favourably as a swell source anyway, we can now effectively write it off completely. 

This weekend (Feb 2 - 3)

The weekend looks potentially very fun at this stage.

Friday’s southerly change is expected to stall across the Mid North Coast, and a building ridge of high pressure to the south will broaden an easterly flow through the central Tasman Sea, aimed nicely through our swell window.

This looks worthy of a fun E’ly swell both days, peaking somewhere around the 3-4ft range at exposed beaches. 

Saturday’s winds look a little iffy at the moment under the influence of the ridge (i.e. onshore), but it’s currently expected to break down into Sunday leaving us with light variable winds and therefore clean conditions.

As such, Sunday is my pick of the weekend right now, but I’ll refine the details on Wednesday. 

Next week (Feb 4 onwards)

Our long term focus swings to the tropics, where the monsoon trough is redeveloping across the top end, and expected to develop several tropical lows - and possible tropical cyclones - through the Coral Sea and South Pacific from about Sunday or Monday onwards for the following week or two. 

Or course, it’s still a very long time away, and the presence of a cyclone in this region does not necessarily guarantee a swell event of any kind for SE Qld, let alone Southern NSW. However, these patterns are slow moving so it’s shaping up to be an extended period of synoptic watching across the Coral and South Pacific Seas for signs of favourable swell generating systems. 

Right now there's a suggestion we'll see a significant tropical cyclone track southwards along the eastern side of Fiji (and eventually out of the associated swell shadow) around the middle of next week, stalling north of New Zealand - which paints an exciting picture for a large E/NE groundswell in our region later next week and into the weekend.

But it’s still early days, and very likely that we’ll see significant changes to the model guidance with each successive update. 

See you Wednesday!