Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 1st February)

Best Days: Plenty of fun waves for the entire period, though biggest Sat PM (with mainly light winds). Sun AM also well worth the effort. Long term forecast is very dynamic too.

Recap: Thursday morning delivered rapidly improving conditions with light N’ly tending NW winds, and an easing NE swell from 3ft. Surf size abated pretty quickly throughout the day, ahead of a late gusty S’ly change that’s produced a strong increase in S’ly swell today, around 3-4ft+ at south facing beaches, slightly bigger in the Hunter and with winds slowly easing and backing from the S to the S/SW (though they’re still fresh across the Hunter).

Strong south swell on the Northern Beaches this morning

This weekend (Feb 2 - 3)

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The weekend forecast has improved a little more since Wednesday.

There’s no change to the surf outlook but the prospects of average conditions on Saturday have diminished slightly, with a building ridge through the Central Tasman Sea now expected to exert a little less influence across the coastal margin.

We may see a brief period of onshore winds but in general they’ll tend light and variable throughout the day. We’ll see building E’ly swells up into the 3-4ft+ range as the day wears on, with the most size expected through the afternoon (so, expect a size lag early morning).

Light winds were persist into Sunday morning ahead of a freshening afternoon nor’easter, and surf size will slowly ease from this source. Expect occasional 3ft+ sets easing to 2-3ft as the day wears on, and perhaps a little smaller late in the day. By this time the breezes conditions will be chopping up the open beaches anyway. 

Next week (Feb 4 onwards)

The first half of next week will see a broad mix of smaller swells, with freshening N/NE winds on Monday tending variable for Tuesday and early Wednesday as a trough pushes into the region. 

The weekend’s east swell will ease back to a lazy 2ft and there’ll be some small trade swell from developments in the Northern Tasman Sea over the weekend (no major size though). 

The local NE flow through Sunday night and Monday should kick up a similar size of local windswell, though no real quality is expected. 

Additionally, we’ll see a small S/SE groundswell glance the coast through this time frame, generated by an intense Southern Ocean low forming well SE of Tasmania into Friday. Unfortunately, it’s developing on the periphery of our swell window and will track away from us at the same time so we'll see just a fraction of the energy reaching our shores. I wouldn’t count on it be much more than the odd 2ft set from Monday through Tuesday. 

In Wednesday’s notes I discussed another Central Tasman Sea ridge (similar to the one developing today) but unfortunately the latest model runs have kept this much further south, so we’ll see only a small SE swell into Wednesday from this source. Size should again be in and around the 2ft mark, though bigger on the South Coast as it’ll be closer to the fetch.

And lastly, Wednesday is looking to see a small long period S/SE groundswell push through, originating from an intense polar low developing just off the ice shelf - well south of New Zealand - over the coming days. Model guidance has the leading edge into the Northern Beaches around 6am with peak swell periods of 16 seconds, peaking around 6pm with half a metre of swell at 14.6 seconds. This is not too dissimilar to the unusual S/SE groundswell we saw last Sun/Mon (which produced occaisonal 3ft+ sets at south swell magnets) so there's a useful proxy for now. However it'll be extremely inconsistent, and won't favour every coast either. So don't rely on it as a major source of energy.

Long term prospects look good in the tropics. A stationary trade flow will maintain small E/NE swell for the foreseeable future, and a series of tropical lows - possibly tropical cyclones - developing in and around the Fijian region look like they’ll intensify and broaden in structure mid-late next week, to the N/NE of New Zealand.

This sets up the potential for strong E/NE groundswell building any time from about next Sunday or Monday through much of the following week (beginning Feb 11th). Mid-late week looks particularly promising at this stage for the most size and strength. 

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!