Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 4th March)

Best Days: Wed: nice mix of swells with improving conditions. Sun: light winds and a possible long period S'ly swell at south swell magnets.  

Recap: E/NE swell built from 2ft to 3-4ft over the weekend. A small underlying S’ly swell was present too.  Winds were mainly light early but freshened from the NE during the day. Today we’ve seen wave heights holding between 3ft and occasionally 4ft at swell magnets, though it’s been very inconsistent. Winds have been similar to the weekend, light early with freshening NE breezes this afternoon. As yet there’s no sign of the expected bigger sets originating from TC Pola.

This week (Mar 5 - 8)

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Tomorrow looks pretty similar to today, with an underlying sideband trade swell offering inconsistent 3ft, almost 3-4ft sets at exposed beaches, with freshening NE’ly breezes limiting the best waves to protected northern corners. Some locations may see an early period of light N'ly winds and thus slightly better conditions.

However, despite the expected longer period E/NE groundswell from TC Pola not yet showing, I still think we’re going to see some new energy later today and into Tuesday morning. This could provide very rare bigger sets in the 4-5ft+ range at exposed beaches. But they will be the exception rather than the norm so anticipate more surfing in the lower end of the forecast size range. 

Wednesday looks really good. An approaching trough will allow winds to relax throughout the day ahead of a late S’ly change, so conditions should clean up steadily (early morning may see some temporary wobble before winds veer NW then become variable). 

The trade flow is currently well established across the Northern Tasman Sea, so although long period energy from TC Pola will ease by this time, we’ll still see a fairly steady 3-4ft of E/NE energy across the coast. There’ll also be some peaky NE windswell from Tuesday afternoon’s gusty conditions (see below), with size in the 2-3ft range. A slight decrease may occur throughout the day from both sources (more so the NE windswell than the sideband E/NE trade swell).

The South Coast will see a mid-afternoon S’ly change; it should be into Sydney just before dinner time. 

Wednesday’s late change will ease steadily through Thursday though early morning presents a risk for exposed regions, with lingering S’ly breezes. We’ll also have a strong short range S’ly swell in the water providing 4-5ft sets at south facing beaches, with smaller surf elsewhere. The E/NE swell will be on the way down but should still hold 2ft+ at most NE facing beaches early morning.

As for Friday, it looks like we’ll be back to small leftovers with light winds and NE sea breezes. 

This weekend (Mar 9 - 10)

Saturday looks a little average, with freshening NE winds and building NE windswells. We may see some 2ft+ sets by the afternoon but no quality is expected.

On Sunday, winds will become light and variable as a weak trough occupies the region. We’ll see some small, though easing NE windswell, but also a small long period S’ly groundswell from a large and powerful though poorly aligned low pressure system south of Tasmania on Thursday and Friday. 

The size of the low is quite impressive but I’m concerned that its poor orientation plus significant swell shadowing offered by Tasmania will significantly attenuate wave heights across Southern NSW. 

If nothing else we’ll see an enormous difference in size range - most beaches won't see much, if any swell from this source, however the majority of south facing beaches should pick up 2ft sets. On the other hand, reliable south swell magnets (mainly across the Hunter) could see much larger waves in the 3-4ft+ range. We’ll have to wait and see how the model updates propagate this system over the coming days. 

Next week (Mar 11 onwards)

Nothing major showing on the charts right now - I’ll be watching a steady frontal progression south of Tasmania and also a small area of tropical activity between New Caledonia and Fiji, for possible swell generation into the long period term.

More on this in Wednesday’s forecast.