Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 24th July)

Best Days: Thurs: small early pulse at south facing beaches. 

Recap: Tuesday’s minor S/SE swell came in a little under budget with slow 2ft sets at south swell magnets, mainly across the Hunter. Everywhere else was smaller. Today we’ve seen early light winds swinging to the S/SW and freshening, and a small short range S’ly swell is now building across south swell magnets, though quality is low. 

This week (July 25 - 26)

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A cold front pushed out from eastern Bass Strait overnight and is now progressing across the Tasman Sea (see below). We’ll see a small, brief spike of S’ly swell overnight, but size will ease through Thursday, however conditions will become clean again with light offshore winds ahead of weak afternoon sea breezes. 

South facing beaches will see the most size, up to a slow 2ft across most south facing beaches, and 2-3ft+ in the Hunter, but everywhere else will be tiny to flat. Expect size to ease into the afternoon. 

As for Friday - with no appreciable new swell in the water, most beaches will remain tiny, though clean with light variable winds.

As a side note - in Monday’s Forecaster Notes for SE Qld and Northern NSW, I discussed a complex system that developed off the E/NE coast of New Zealand over the weekend, and is generating large swells for its East Coast. New Zealand is largely shadowing the Australian East Coast’s surf potential, but there was initially just enough of the fetch protruding north into our east swell window to suggest that we may see small levels of energy reach our shores. 

This event is expected to reach a peak on the weekend, but the early stages of the low may kick up some faint lines for Thursday afternoon and Friday. Indeed, the models have a whopping 0.3m at 12 seconds on Thursday (Northern Beaches), with the swell periods jumping to 15 seconds late Friday.

I wouldn’t push the diary around, but it’ll be worth keeping an eye on the Manly cam in case this swell punches above its weight. Though, if we see anything bigger than 1ft before Friday afternoon, I’ll be extremely surprised.
 
This weekend (July 27 - 28)

The models have slightly strengthened a cold front tracking north through the western Tasman Sea overnight Friday, though it’s still not going to be terribly strong.

We’ll see a wind shift to the south early morning (moderate strength, maybe moderate to fresh at some beaches), and a small short range S’ly swell up to 2ft+ at south swell magnets by the afternoon (smaller earlier) but there won’t be anything amazing on offer. 

This swell will then fade to almost nothing through Sunday. 

The only other swell source for the weekend is the aforementioned unusual E’ly swell from the low E/NE of New Zealand at the moment. 

Model guidance has swell periods drawing out to 16 seconds on Saturday, so despite ocean swells likely be less than half a metre, we can’t completely discount the possibility of waves (for example, southerly groundswells with the same attributes have occasionally produced four feet surf at south swell magnets). 

In this case, I really don’t have a lot of confidence that we’ll see much, if any size at most beaches, but there’s certainly a chance for a few locations with ideal bathymetry to rake in very inconsistent 2ft+ sets.

Unfortunately, these kinds of swell events are rare, so it’s impossible to know which locations may pick up the flukey energy. Throw in the developing southerly breeze and options will be somewhat limited for anything great.

So on the balance, expect very little this weekend and be pleasantly surprised if you score a tidy session somewhere. 

Next week (July 29 onwards)

A strong front is expected to rocket into the Southern Ocean next Tuesday, and delivery a spell of large, windy waves across Southern NSW with size around 6ft+ through the middle of the week. More on that in Friday’s update.