Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 8th April)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun: mix of small S'ly swells with light winds. Next Tues onwards: building E'ly swells, potentially sizeable as we head into the Easter break.

Recap: Saturday maintained Friday’s clean run of peaky E’ly swell around 3ft, before a long period E/NE groundswell moved into the region on Sunday, boosting size to a powerful 3-5ft across most coasts, with clean conditions under early light winds and afternoon sea breezes. Size has eased back today but was still holding 3ft across most open beaches this morning with light variable winds across most coasts. 

This week (April 9 - 12)

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A small mix of easing leftover E/NE and minor glancing S’ly swells are expected across Southern NSW beaches on Tuesday. Slow, inconsistent 2ft sets are possible at some exposed beaches but it’ll become even smaller as the day progresses. 

Freshening NW winds will precede a strong southerly change that’s expected to rocket up the South Coast around the middle of the day, reaching Sydney mid-late afternoon (about 4pm or thereabouts), with conditions becoming quickly blown out afterwards.

A healthy fetch trailing the change will generate a strong short range S’ly swell for Wednesday morning, though lingering S’ly winds across most coasts will affect wave quality. 

The strength of the synoptic flow will probably override the chance for any topographical influence on local winds; the Northern Beaches is the only exception under these circumstances but in any case there’ll still be a big difference in size between south swell magnets (3-5ft) and protected southern corners (1-2ft). So keep your expectations low. The one positive for Wednesday is that winds should ease back throughout the day.

Light variable winds and sea breezes are then expected Thursday and Friday as a series of south swells both ease and arrive across the coast. We’ll see easing energy from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday, but a small pulse of longer period southerly swell is expected to fill in on Friday, originating from the southern extend of a polar low skirting along the ice shelf below the Tasman Sea on Thursday. It’s expected to be off-axis and so won’t be ideal for major size, but it should renew inconsistent sets back up into the 2-3ft range at south swell magnets to finish the week (note: models have this building through the afternoon, so the morning may be undersized). However beaches not open to the south will be very small.

This weekend (April 13 - 14)

A weak, troughy pattern is expected across Southern NSW coast over the weekend, so conditions should be clean both days with light winds and afternoon sea breezes. 

At this stage, surf size is expected to remain small, with the dominant swell source being small long period S’ly energy generated by migrating polar lows along the ice shelf (below the continent), on the periphery of our acute south swell window. 

Ordinarily we’d see very little surf from these sources but I think south swell magnets should be in a position to pull in occasional 2ft, almost 2-3ft sets if we’re lucky. Elsewhere, surf size will be tiny.


Let’s take a closer look on Wednesday.

Next week (April 15 onwards)

Looks like a broad trough spanning much of the western Tasman Sea over the weekend will evolve into a juicy swell generating system early next week as a high pressure system develops to the east and south. This suggests a building E’ly swell from about Tuesday onwards that could become quite large mid-late week (i.e. into the Easter break) as developments in the Northern Tasman Sea receive a tropical injection, that could supercharge the stationary fetch. 

More on this in Wednesday’s outlook.