South: The Endurance Expedition
Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 31st May)
Best Days: Most days will have plenty of southerly swell - with quite a few days being very sizeable - but local conditions will dictate the best waves - Sun is the pick of the short term, then next Thurs/Fri when winds ease again.
Recap: Strong southerly swells built to 3-4ft in Sydney on Thursday, and 4-6ft this afternoon, bigger across the Hunter though smaller at remaining beaches. Conditions have been clean with mainly light winds, W’ly all day Thurs and Friday morning but tending moderate S’ly this afternoon with bumpy waves at exposed spots.
For a straight south swell, that's a heck of a good size across the Manly stretch mid-Friday afternoon
Thick lines building across the Cenny Coast this afternoon
Solid at Maroubra a short time ago, again - not a south swell magnet
This weekend (June 1 - 2)
Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl
No change to the weekend forecast.
The currently S’ly swell will reach a peak overnight, holding into Saturday morning before trending slowly downwards through Saturday and Sunday.
Early Saturday will see the biggest waves, somewhere north of 6ft to maybe 6-8ft at south facing beaches, and it’ll be bigger across the Hunter and at a bunch of reliable south swell magnets that can handle long period southerly energy well.
The easing trend won’t be as fast and pronounced as we’re used to seeing, thanks to a series of secondary fronts racing through the southern Tasman Sea, we’re still looking at somewhere between 4ft and maybe 6ft early Sunday at south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter, smaller elsewhere etc), before easing to 3-5ft throughout the day. The usual size caveats will apply for the Hunter, and locations not directly open to the south.
As for conditions, Saturday is at risk of moderate to fresh S’ly winds redeveloping across the region, but we’ll probably see quite a few regions - though not all - pick up a decent period of light SW thru’ W’ly winds early morning. This'll be your best time to surf.
Sunday looks even better on the surface with light winds and sea breezes all day, so there’ll be really nice waves everywhere, as long as your beach can handle the south swell.
Next week (June 3 onwards)
We’ve still got a large Tasman Low modelled for form in the southern Tasman Sea on Monday, the result of the merger of two systems - a mid latitude and a polar front, both approaching our swell window over the weekend.
Monday will see surf size level out in the 3ft+ range at south facing beaches, with freshening W/SW winds keeping conditions clean. A strong front wrapping around the developing Tasman Low is expected to impact the South Coast in the afternoon, though the resulting swing change (to the SW or S/SW) and associated swell increase probably won’t reach Sydney until late in the day. And it’ll be wind affected if it arrives earlier than expected.
Nevertheless, this Tasman Low looks like it’s going to remain slow moving for a couple of days, with southerly gales inside our short range swell window generating very large surf around 8ft, maybe 8-10ft on Tuesday, easing gradually throughout Wednesday. Accompanying winds will be fresh to strong from the SW tending S/SW both days, so only sheltered spots will be worthwhile (and they’ll be much smaller).
A series of strong follow up fronts originating in the Southern Ocean are expected to push through the lower Tasman Sea, and maintain elevated southerly swells across Southern NSW through the latter part of the week. There's a good chance we’ll see 6ft+ surf at south facing beaches from this next sequence, probably around Friday, give or take.
To be honest, this latter sequence looks much better for the region's surf prospects, as it’ll have been generated from further away (so swell quality will be higher) and the storm track will be a little further east into the Tasman Sea, so local conditions will be under the influence of a broad ridge high pressure, resulting in light winds.
So, if you're fully booked early next week, don’t worry too much about the large surf as the second half of the week is currently my pick of the forecast period.
Let’s hope the next five days of solid southerly swells unwelds those banks too.
Have a great weekend, see you Monday!
Comments
Lovely late lines on the Cenny Coast.
If a 2ft south groundswell and good winds equates to shoulder high fun A-frames, which it does. And a weaker 2-3ft NE swell, are both the minimum requirements for a good day of waves. And if any all day onshore wind equals no good, despite the swell, then on my stretch, May had 22 good days, including a 12 day stretch from the 12th to the 23rd. There’s about 5 pumping days in that 22 total as well. Best May for a while.
Manly showing some form (and size!). How's those lines diffracting into the bay too?
Big, choppy wash-throughs at Shark Island (with a dozen in the water!) - but the odd gem - yep that's a standup in the third image.
South Narra is occasionally doing this:
And every so often, this:
But mainly it's a whole load of this:
Followed by this:
south narra is always doing that ben. u’ll get as many epic stills of waves there as you want, but finding a makeable wave to surf is another matter
Hi Ben,
Do you have a timeframe for getting the Bondi, Thirroul and Wollongong cams up again?
Cheers,
Ray
G’day Ray, we’ve had four brand new Illawarra cams waiting to be installed for the last couple of months (all of the hardware is already with our local sparky) but have hit numerous hurdles with the NBN trying to get internet connections active. Once they’re done we’ll then get Bondi knocked off too (and a bunch of other new locations). I’m hoping we’ll have at least a couple of them live within the next week or two.
Thanks for your patience! It’ll be worth the wait :)
Ah yes... Those 3 letters (NBN) hurt my eyes and send a shiver down my spine when I see them! Yep, the whole area has had some issues regarding the rollout of it. No worries at all mate, thanks for the communication.
How bad are the banks. The local is as bad as I can remember and seems to be the case up and down the coast.
Bust those banks.
Not where I am down south. Smoking this morning.
Banks have been mixed up since the weekend's swell. Real fun waves this morning!
oh yeah... another great morning. even had a few good lefts.
Tomorrow is looking very interesting on the charts, is it going to be as big as they are saying?