Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 6th March)

Best Days: Thurs: arvo options as winds ease, with a peaky mix of S'ly and E/NE swells. Sun: small+ long period S'ly swell with light morning winds.

Recap: We’ve had plenty of surf for the last few days, with E/NE swell generally holding 3-4ft though there were brief pulses of larger cyclone swell from TC Pola, pushing 4-5ft at times. Freshening NE winds created problems yesterday but they’ve been only light today so conditions have been much better, ahead of a S’ly change that’s just nosing into the metro region as I type. 

Stormy conditions developing at Manly as the S'ly just pushed north of the harbour a few minutes ago. Hence why there's no-one out!

This week (Mar 7 - 8)

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E/NE swell will ease slowly throughout the rest of the week. Most open beaches should see 2ft, maybe 2-3ft sets early Thursday but it’ll steadily trend down into the afternoon and further through Friday.

However, we’ll have a more dominant short range S’ly swell in the wake of today’s change. The trailing fetch will only last a brief period at strength in our swell window, so we’ll see a morning spike in size around 4-5ft at south facing beaches before wave heights then steadily ease throughout the day. Expect smaller surf at remaining beaches.

Unfortunately, most coasts will see lingering fresh southerly breezes on Thursday morning, but they’ll abate throughout the day. We’re likely to see pockets of lighter, more favourable SW winds early morning but this will generally be confined to the coast south of Wollongong and perhaps one or two localised regions (i.e. Northern Beaches). As such, expect bumpy conditions, but it’ll improve a little into the afternoon.

Rapidly easing size into Friday will leave us with very small waves to finish the week. The synoptic wind will be back to nothing by this time, so expect clean though perhaps marginally lumpy conditions under a variable pattern before afternoon NE breeze freshen. Exposed south facing beaches should see early 2ft+ sets (easing during the day) with smaller E/NE swell in the water. 

This weekend (Mar 9 - 10)

The weekend looks a little tricky. And, the wave models are not properly picking up any of the swells I am expecting, so this reduces confidence in the outlook.

A weak trough will occupy the southern part of the Southern NSW coast, so we’ll see mixed winds: southerly in the Far South, extending north during the day, NE winds in the north, probably from the northern Hunter through to about Sydney, and then a period of slack winds in the middle (from Sydney through the Illawarra). 


The trough will then clear the coast on Sunday bringing light offshore winds and afternoon sea breezes. Some models have a weak low forming in the central Tasman Sea but I don’t think it’ll be much of a swell producer.

As for surf, we’ll see a small NE windswell from overnight breezes on Friday. No major size is expected though occasional 2ft sets are possible at NE swell magnets. 

All weekend should see a small level of background E/NE swell from a stationary trade flow north of New Zealand at the moment. Again, no major size is expected but we’ll see the odd 2ft set at exposed beaches from this source.

The most interesting swell source is a major low pressure system tracking underneath Tasmania later Thursday and Friday. It’s a big system with very strong core wind speeds, but it’s poorly aligned within our swell window and will also travel pretty quickly to the east, which isn’t good for swell generation (relative to our coast). 

However, there are a bunch of south swell magnets that rake in these events nicely, and I think we’ll see some nice waves. Beaches without southerly exposure won’t see much, if any size at all, but most south facing beaches should pick up 2-3ft sets at the height of the swell (early Sunday) and a bunch of reliable south swell magnets could see occasional 4ft+ bombs. 

The leading edge is expected into the South Coast on Saturday afternoon, and Sydney just before dinnertime, but the most size will probably occur early Sunday before tapering off throughout the day.

As such, I’d recommend hitting up a south swell magnet for the dawn patrol on Sunday.

Next week (Mar 11 onwards)

There’s a couple of sources for the long term. A minor front will push through the lower Tasman Sea on Monday, kicking up a small south swell, whilst a stronger front late Tuesday will generate a bigger though likely wind affected south swell for Wednesday. 

We may then see some form of low pressure system linger in the southern Tasman Sea mid-week, supplying SE swell for our region.

There’s also signs of more tropical activity between Fiji and New Caledonia over the weekend, that may drift south into our swell window early next week and thus supply E/NE swell mid-late next week. But that’s still quite some time away.

See you Friday!