Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 29th April)

Best Days: Tuesday morning, Friday from mid-late morning for keen surfers at spots open to the north-east swell

Recap

A mixed weekend of waves with the tricky pulses of S'ly swell being just that. A strong increase in size was seen early Saturday with 4-5ft sets across Sydney's south magnets, kicking to 4-6ft to the north, but early offshore winds gave into a fresh S'ly change mid-morning, creating average conditions for the rest of the day as the swell steadily dropped.

A reinforcing pulse expected on Sunday wasn't seen with leftover 2ft+ waves across south magnets with a morning offshore, shifting S'ly again later morning.

Today a new mix of S'ly swells provided much better surf with clean 3-4ft sets across Sydney, a little bigger in Newcastle and just a touch wind affected into this afternoon.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This week and weekend (Apr 30 – May 5)

These notes will be brief as Ben’s away today.

Today's mix of S'ly swells were generated by cold fronts pushing through the southern Tasman Sea yesterday and with those clearing to the east, we'll see the size easing gradually through tomorrow.

South facing beaches should still offer good 3ft sets tomorrow morning, if not for the rare bigger one (a little larger in the Hunter) and conditions will be great through the morning with a W/NW offshore ahead of fresh N/NE sea breezes.

This N/NE'ly will kick up a small increase in NE windswell to 2ft to occasionally 3ft across north-east facing beaches Wednesday morning though with an average moderate to fresh N'ly wind, N/NE into the afternoon again. South facing beaches will be small and fading from 1-2ft.

The NE windswell looks to persist around a small 2ft+ Thursday with moderate to fresh N/NE winds increasing a little Friday morning as a mid-latitude low moving in across Victoria squeezes a strong high sitting in the Tasman Sea.

2ft to occasionally 3ft sets are expected and winds will improve, shifting N/NW through the morning and holding into the afternoon as the NE swell fades.

Come Saturday morning we'll have clean smooth conditions with a W/SW tending variable breeze, though small easing 1-2ft sets.

On Saturday afternoon and more so Sunday some inconsistent E'ly trade-swell is due across the coast, generated by a less than favourably aligned fetch of strong SE winds just behind New Zealand's North Island.

With the poor alignment I wouldn't expect much over 1-2ft and conditions will be clean early morning with a W/SW breeze, though a freshening S/SE breeze may be seen through the morning.

The change will be linked to a broad and slow moving low moving in across Tassie and across the south Tasman Sea, but the models diverge on what this system will do once in our swell window. We may see building S/SE swell with average winds early next week, but more on this Wednesday.