Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 8th March)

Best Days: Sat: small window of peaky NE swell as a region of light winds precedes a shallow S'ly change. Sun: sneaky long period S'ly swell at south swell magnets. Thurs/Fri: interesting S'ly swells with mainly light winds. Fri/Sat/Sun: chance for a good E/NE swell. 

Recap: Thursday saw a punchy south swell light up south facing beaches with 4-5ft sets, with a small E/NE swell lingering in the mix. Conditions were bumpy with initial moderate to fresh S’ly winds but they eased into the afternoon. Today has delivered much smaller, weaker swell easing from 2-3ft to 1-2ft at south facing beaches, with smaller surf elsewhere. Early light N’ly winds have freshened throughout the day. 

This weekend (Mar 9 - 10)

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No change to the weekend outlook - it still looks pretty tricky. 

A trough will push across the South Coast during the day, leading to a wide range in conditions, with northerly winds ahead of it and southerly winds in its wake, and a possible slack period between the two. A small low will probably form at some point but it won’t be a major swell producer.

The general model overview is that we’ll see moderate N’ly winds from Sydney to Newcastle for at least the first half of of Saturday, with the southerly change slowly pushing north along the South Coast, possible reaching Sydney sometime mid-late morning but without any major strength north from the Illawarra (stronger winds are likely to the south). Ahead of the change, winds will tend varibale for a period. There's usually very little confidence in local winds under troughy patterns like this, so it's worth being prepared for just about anything (gut feel is that most locations between Wollongong and Newcastle won't see a great deal of strength in the N'ly or S'ly breeze tomorrow).

Synoptic S’ly winds will then largely clear to the east on Sunday, leaving us in a light and variable pattern ahead of freshening NE sea breezes into the afternoon.

As for surf, we’ll see a small pulse of NE windswell on Saturday morning, thanks to the current fetch developing off the coast. A minor E/NE trade swell may also provide some inconsistent sets. Both sources won’t generate much more than a couple of feet at exposed NE facing beaches, perhaps the odd 2ft+ bomb if you're in the right place at the right time. 

However, there’s still an interesting curveball in the mix.

From Saturday lunchtime (South Coast) through evening (Sydney region) onwards, we’re likely to see the leading edge of a small, poorly aligned but long period S’ly swell glance the Southern NSW coast, generated by an intense low passing south of Tasmania late yesterday and today. 

On the whole, this swell will bypass most Sydney beaches but south facing beaches should pick up inconsistent 2-3ft sets, and if we’re really lucky, a handful of reliable south swell magnets (mainly through the Hunter) could see occasional 4ft+ bombs. Aside from the South Coast, Saturday may see the swell arriving too late to capitalise on, so early Sunday morning is probably your best option before it quickly eases during the day (unfortunately, it looks like this event will peak overnight). 

Next week (Mar 11 onwards)

The synoptics look pretty quiet for the start of next week, with mainly small swells on offer for Monday and Tuesday, with light winds and sea breezes. There's a suggestion for a shallow S'ly change and a small new S'ly swell but I don't think it's worth getting excited about.

The second half of the week looks a lot different.

A strong southerly change is expected late Tuesday and we’ll see a punchy short range S’ly swell building into Wednesday, showing 4ft+ at south facing beaches though likely with moderate southerly winds (smaller surf elsewhere). These winds will ease during the day and we’ll see lighter breezes occupy the second half of the week with slowly easing S’ly swells. 

There is some interesting potential to consider too: the parent low to Tuesday’s late change will slip to the south-east from Wednesday onwards, broadening and intensifying though in a poor track alignment, away from our region and travelling across the great circle paths. This would ordinarily lead to a small southerly swell outlook, but if the models slow its forward speed, wave height forecasts will correspondingly increase in size (because, a low of this strength will display strong winds and thus generate higher swell periods). Let’s keep a close eye on this one.

Lastly, a small tropical system is expected to develop between New Caledonia and Fiji this weekend, and then very slowly track south towards New Zealand, ridging up against a high pressure system to the south and strengthening an interesting E’ly fetch. In fact the end of the GFS model run has quite an impressive system sitting in our E/NE swell window, that could generate a strong groundswell building later next week peaking into the weekend.

There is some divergence amongst the models but they’re all in agreement that we’ll see see kind of development in our eastern swell window for the long term. So let’s see how Monday’s updates are looking.

Have a great weekend!