Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 28th October)

Best Days: All week: plenty of S'ly swell, but winds are dicey. Aim for a morning session. Fri/Sat/Sun: plenty of NE swell though winds look tricky.

Recap: A big part of these Forecaster Notes is the Recap, for a couple of reasons: it resets the datum for the following days forecast, it allows the opportunity to confirm the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the last few days, and can also be used down the track for hindcasting purposes. However, verification isn’t always an easy task. 

Take the past three days for example: I forecast three seperate swell events (NE Sat, S’ly Sun and another S'ly Mon), with the usual caveats for each. The NE swell was to be biggest at NE facing beaches, and smaller at south facing beaches (of which I specifically referenced the Northern Hunter coast). And, the south swell was meant to be biggest at south facing beaches. Fairly standard stuff.

By and large, looking at Sydney data alone, the NE swell performed as expected on Saturday, with clean conditions all day and easing size from 2-3ft to 2ft. However, most unusually, the Hunter and Northern Hunter region picked up a pulse of E/NE swell in the 3-4ft range very late Saturday, that has no apparent source on the synoptic charts or satellite passes (or the model guidance, for that matter). We captured some surfcam grabs from Newy just before dark showing strong lines, and the afternoon's pulse been verified from a few other people in the water. The best explanation is that the somewhat N’ly fetch (responsible for the region NE swell) was sufficiently offshore to allow a spread of energy back into the coast, where the swell specifics - the “magic numbers”, as we often refer to them - were perfect for this coast. 

The only other point on Saturday’s NE swell is that it held through Sunday (swinging more E/NE, as per observations in Newy late Saturday), offering 2ft waves across most beaches through the day. Again, this wasn’t really expected.

Concurrently, we saw a fresh S’ly swell build through Sunday that pushed higher than my forecast (2-3ft+ south facing, 3-4ft+ Hunter), briefly reaching 4-5ft at many south facing beaches for an hour or so. Size has since eased back this morning, with south facing beaches around 3ft this morning, with smaller surf elsewhere. Conditions were clean with early light winds but E/NE breezes (weak synoptic flow, not really a sea breeze) came in much earlier than usual across a few locations south from Sydney Harbor (5:30am), eventually swinging onshore across the Northern Beaches around 9:30am. At the time these notes were prepared, winds were still light S/SW across the Hunter and S’ly across the Illawarra.

This week (Oct 29 - Nov 1)

No real changes to the outlook for the next few days though wave heights have been pulled back a touch for the middle of the week.

Essentially, we’ve got a series of overlapping southerly swells on target for Southern NSW. Over the weekend, a deep polar low formed well south of Tasmania and that’s providing an undercurrent of 2-3ft surf at most south facing beaches (bigger in the Hunter) from today thru’ Wednesday. 

A series of frontal systems riding further north in latitude are generating brief spikes of secondary south swell that may momentarily generate larger waves in the 3-4ft range (maybe some bigger sets across thew Hunter).

Aside from today’s energy, Tuesday has a pulse with Wednesday offering a potentially bigger round of energy (than Tuesday), and then another pulse is expected Thursday. However, the storm tracks were slightly weakened over the weekend so there’s less confidence that they’ll occur (nor reach the upper end of the prediceted size). 

Early Tuesday and early Wednesday are probably the safest bet to see the largest surf from this time frame, and we’ll also have to work around the winds. Northerlies are expected all week, though they’ll be troughy and sporadic for the next few days, with periods of light variable patches in the morning. 

By Thursday the synoptic flow will become more established and by Friday it’ll be sufficiently strong enough (see below) to generate 3-4ft of afternoon NE swell that’ll persist into the weekend. Prior to this, Wednesday and Thursday may see some small NE windswells on top of the fluctuating southerly energy.

So, aim for a morning session all week (until Thursday at least) at your favourite south swell magnet. Friday could be difficult with strengthening N’ly winds. 

This weekend (Nov 2 - 3)

A series of troughs will influence the South Coast over the weekend, but at this stage it’s unsure how far north they’ll provide a benefit for local surf conditions. We may remain entrenched in a northerly breeze all weekend north from the Illawarra, or at least Sydney (to the South Coast has the best surfing options this weekend).

As for size, Friday’s strengthening winds look like they’ll kick up 3-5ft of peaky NE swell for reliable swell magnets, easing a little during the day and into Sunday but still probably managing 3ft+ sets. There'll be very little leftover S'ly swell by this stage.

Let’s take a closer look on Wednesday so we can fine tune the winds and work out what options may be worthwhile.

Next week (Nov 4 onwards)

An extended trough pattern means there’s a bucket load of short range swell potential next week. In addition to local NE windswell, we may see a closed low form off the coast, generating a strong S’ly swell, though this will become more apparent over the coming days. 

See you Wednesday!