Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 14th October)

Best Days: Most days should have reasonable waves, biggest Thurs with an E/SE and NE swell combo, and then Friday and Sunday with S'ly swells.

Recap: The weekend’s strong SE groundswell came in under budget across most coasts. We did have some reliable reports of a late Saturday afternoon pulse into the 6-8ft range that persisted into Sunday morning before easing through the day, but this was only across a few regions south from Sydney; most Southern NSW coasts (i.e Sydney/Hunter) saw a peak on Sunday around 4-5ft. Conditions were however clean with light winds. Size is now easing across the coast with very good 3-4ft beach breaks on offer.

Fun waves at Newy this morning

Small Monday grinders at Shark Island

This week (Oct 14 - 17)

These notes will be brief as Craig’s on annual leave.

Having not looked at a synoptic map in the last week, I’m just getting back up to speed with things. 

The charts show a low pressure system in the northern Tasman Sea, which is mostly aimed away from our region though a small E’ly fetch on its southern flank is generating some E/NE swell for Southern NSW. Its potential is being tempered by a quick SE track; it’s expected to stall off the NW tip of New Zealand today, so most of this fetch probably won’t generate a lot of energy for our region.

However, a strong E/SE fetch will develop off the west coast of the North Island today, holding into tomorrow morning, and this will kick up a nice E’ly tending E/SE swell for Southern NSW. The leading edge is due very late Wednesday - we may see some late lines in the few hours before dark - but Thursday is a better bet for the most size and energy.

For some reason the models don’t seem to like this swell much at all, and are expecting a peak on Thursday around 0.7m at just over ten seconds, translating this to 1-2ft surf for Thursday. I think we’re looking at much better surf prospects, up into the 3-4ft+ range at times, and conditions will be clean with offshore winds. It's a great swell direction for Southern NSW so it'll be well worth pushing your diary around on Thursday for some early waves.

Prior to this, expect easing swells from today through Tuesday and early Wednesday with variable conditions. A freshening NE breeze off the coast tonight may kick up some small secondary NE windswell for Tuesday, and locally winds should be light in the morning, before restrengthening into the afternoon, renewing short period NE windswell for Wednesday morning which may be a touch bigger than Tuesday’s energy. Most beaches should have reasonable small beachbreaks early in and around the 2ft+ range but expect patchy quality. 

A weak trough off the Far South Coast Tuesday will spread northwards into Wednesday, swinging winds to the southern quadrant though without any major strength for much of the day.

In addition to Thursday’s E/SE swell, we’ll see small mid-range NE swells from a strong though poorly aligned N’ly fetch off the Northern NSW coast. This energy will lose size as it bends back into Southern NSW but the mix of swells should help to create fun peaks across the open beaches.  Winds should be mainly offshore though the passage of a front during the day may swing winds to the S/SW at strength for a period.

And to finish the week we’re looking at light winds and sea breezes, along with a brief though punchy S’ly swell up to 3-4ft at south facing beaches, generated by Thursday’s front. Thursday’s E/SE swell will be largely gone by this time as will the NE swell from earlier in the week.

So, there are plenty of waves this week from a wide variety of source. I'll update in the comments below as more info comes to hand.

This weekend (Oct 18 - 19)

A series of strong fronts will push south of Tasmania from Friday onwards. However they won’t really enter our south swell window until Saturday, so we’ll see easing swells for the first half of the weekend ahead of a building S’ly swell for Sunday. 

Saturday is likely to see a mix of leftover swells from various sources, with wave heights up to 2ft at exposed beaches, clean under a light variable breeze. 

Sunday’s S’ly swell could go as high as 3-4ft+ at south facing beaches, but I suspect the bulk energy (with a little more size) will probably push through on Monday. I’ll refine this timing on Wednesday. At this stage Sunday’s winds look reasonably good too.

Next week (Oct 20 onwards)

There’s a lot of swell potential for next week, with troughiness off the Northern NSW coast likely to produce local swell somewhere on the East Coast, another trough near Fiji possibly generating some E/NE swell, but more dominant will be a series of strong S’ly swells early in the week from migrating fronts through the Southern Ocean. More on this on Wednesday.