Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 8th May)

Best Days: Thurs: brief S'ly swell. Thurs/Fri: keep an eye out for intermittent long range S/SE sets. Sat: large but windy. Sun: much smaller, cleaner. 

Recap: Tuesday saw strong 6-8ft S/SE swells across Southern NSW, with light offshore winds all day. Similar conditions persisted today though wave heights have dropped steadily, from 3-4ft early to 1-2ft this afternoon. The S’ly component in the swell direction has resulted in much smaller surf elsewhere.

This week (May 9 - 10)

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

We’ve got a small new S’ly swell due for Thursday.

Unfortunately, the latest model runs have narrowed the width of the responsible fetch - a post-frontal W/SW flow exiting eastern Bass Strait, see below - and also tweaked its direction a little more zonally, away from our swell window. This has downgraded its potential size.

In any case, only south swell magnets were only meant to see any size from this energy anyway, and they’ll remain your go-to location: south facing beaches in Sydney should reach 2ft+, with occasional 3ft+ sets across exposed Hunter locations. It’ll be a brief pulse too, so if you see something in the water, get on it quickly, as it may not last very long (the morning is more likely to have waves than the afternoon). Away from south swell magnets, expect tiny residual energy.

Local conditions look great for an early surf with light offshore winds but we’ll see moderate N’ly breezes in the afternoon.  

Freshening offshore wind are expected on Friday, and in general, there won’t be much surf around for most beaches - the south swell will be gone, leaving some minor residual E/NE swell from distant activity in the South Pacific over the weekend. 

As a side note, both days may see a small, extremely inconsistent undercurrent of long period S/SE swell, generated by intense polar low pressure systems well to the S and SE of New Zealand over the weekend and earlier this week (mentioned in Friday’s notes but inadvertently omitted on Monday because of Tuesday’s distracting swell event!).

Despite the nice figures on the swell forecast data - suggesting 4ft sets - I don’t think we’ll see a lot of energy either day, just the odd 2ft+ wave glancing reliable south swell magnets, with breaks of twenty of thirty minutes between sets. It’s worth keeping a watch out for, but not worth planning any surf time around.

This weekend (May 11 - 12)

An intense Tasman Low is expected to form off the South Coast on Saturday morning, driving southerly gales into the region and generating a large local swell that should push north of 6-8ft at south facing beaches by lunchtime. However, it’ll be very wind affected and only sheltered southern corners will offer anything worthwhile.

The low will rapidly clear to the east during the day, leading to an easing of winds into the afternoon (and opening up some late surfable options), but Sunday looks much cleaner with light offshore winds under a weak high pressure system.

Unfortunately, the fetch around the low will be quite north in latitude, and its short-lived nature means we’ll see a rapid drop in size by Sunday morning, at this stage early 3ft+ sets are likely at south facing beaches, but in similarity to today we’ll probably see wave heights halve by the afternoon. 

Let’s take a closer look on Friday. 

Next week (May 13 onwards)

A series of strong Southern Ocean fronts will maintain a healthy regime of southerly groundswell through next week, though no major size is expected at this stage. The southern position of the storm track should allow for generally favourable conditions though.

More on this in Friday’s update.