Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 12th August)

Best Days: Tues/Wed/Thurs: plenty of S'ly swell (and some leftover SE swell early Tues), with light winds. Fri: small and clean out of the south.

Recap: On the balance, the weekend played out generally as expected, with building S’ly swells from Saturday (2ft Sydney’s south facing beaches, 2-3ft+ Hunter) into Sunday (2-3ft Sydney, 3-5ft Hunter) ahead of a larger S’ly swell this morning that’s pushed 4-6ft at most south facing beaches. In the last few hours we’ve seen an expected secondary SE swell push through, no bigger than the pre-existing S’ly swell but locations that earlier weren’t seeing much size - because of the low period S’ly energy - are now much stronger in the 4-6ft range (Shark Island surfcam grabs below are from a short time ago). It's just a shame that winds have gone S’ly this afternoon, as the early SW breeze kept many coasts clean. The weekend was also clean though blustery with fresh offshores. 

Shark Island mid-late Monday afternoon as the new SE energy kicked in

This week (August 13 - 16)

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The conveyor belt of fronts responsible for our current energy are still quite active, and will remain so through Tuesday. This means we’ve got strong southerly swell through Thursday morning at least, easing thereafter.

There’ll be a mix of mid and long period energy, sourced from a couple of strong points within what’s otherwise a broad, elongated, slow moving fetch associated with several low pressure centres and cold fronts. 

Identifying the precise swell trend over the coming days is difficult, because at any one time there’ll be a mix of swell trains in the water: the leading edge of a new swell, arriving concurrently with the plateau of an unrelated short period event, both in addition to the backside of another previous pulse. It’s possible to have some degree of confidence in the likely phase of each swell event, but not the way in which they work together to enhance (and sometimes cancel out) surf size.

So, let’s keep things broad.

Surf size should hold steady somewhere near 4-5ft+ at most south facing beaches from Tuesday thru’ Thursday morning, before the easing trend kicks in from lunchtime Thursday onwards. There’ll be intermittent periods of smaller surf during these three days, but reliable south swell magnets (like the Hunter) will occasionally see larger waves north of 6ft+ at times.

If you have to hedge your bets, we'll probably see the upper end of this size range on Tuesday, than Wednesday or Thursday. But all three days should be characterised by good southerly energy. Of course, anywhere not directly open to the south will be much smaller, due to the swell direction.

As for conditions, a weak high pressure ridge will extend across the coast for the next few days, creating light variable winds and afternoon sea breezes. So it's a great period of waves ahead, if your local enjoys reasonably solid S'ly swells.

By Friday we’ll be back to the small stuff, though there’ll still be enough energy in the tank for occasional 2ft sets at south facing beaches, up to 2-3ft+ in the Hunter (though easing), but elsewhere expect very small waves. 

This weekend (August 17 - 18)

Looks like a small weekend of surf ahead.

A minor front/low combo will track south of Tasmania on Thursday, and this looks to be our primary source of energy. South swell magnets (mainly the Hunter) may pick up the odd 2ft sets but most coasts will be much smaller, and locations without good southerly exposure will be tiny. 

Winds will freshen from the northern quadrant all weekend, though the first half of Saturday should be clean with light breezes. 

Given the recent swell activity, the weekend looks like a bit of a grovel, so unless we see an upgrade by Wednesday I’d consider other activities (read: accumulate some brownie points for the next onslaught of south swell, as per below).

Next week (August 19 onwards)

The LWT is expected to re-amplify through the southern Tasman Sea early next week, leading to a renewed period of strong, sizeable southerly swell for a few days at least. Let’s take a closer look on Wednesday.