Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 10th April)

Best Days: Sun: combo of strong, sizeable S'ly swells, good (improving) conditions. Mon/Tues: more strong S'ly swells, great conditions. Size easing Wed. 

Recap: Southerly swells eased from 3ft on Thursday to 2ft today, whilst a small E’ly swell also provided peaky waves for open beaches. Light morning winds have freshened from the east (yesterday) and north (today).

Small Friday arvo lines at Newcastle

This weekend (Apr 11 - 12)

Saturday will see very small, clean conditions across the coast as W/NW winds freshen in response to an approaching front. Expect minor residual swells across exposed beaches. 

An amplifying Long Wave Trough will push across Tasmania longitudes during the day, and we’ll see a late swing in the wind direction to the W/SW as a powerful front crosses the NSW coast. A very late increase in associated short range southerly swell is possible (perhaps the last hour or two before sunset) but it’ll more likely appear overnight.

As the front pushes east into the Tasman Sea, we’ll experience easing SW winds through Sunday morning, initially moderate to fresh (and maybe W/SW in some regions) but become light and variable by the afternoon.

Sunday’s surf will be large out of the south, originating from two sources. The primary swell will be short range S’ly energy from the overnight frontal passage, and should produce 4-6ft surf at south facing beaches, up to 6-8ft across the Hunter, though much smaller at beaches not open to the south. 

Underneath this, there’ll also be a smaller though longer period S’ly swell generated by an unrelated polar low, currently south of Tasmania, and displaying a broad region of 40-55kt winds. It’s not ideally aimed but the large fetch width should assist in a spread of southerly groundswell along the East Coast, around 3-4ft at most south facing beaches and 4-6ft across the Hunter. This will account for the potential 17-18 second swell periods across the regional wave buoys.

Next week (Apr 13 onwards)

Model guidance remains consistent for a succession of secondary fronts to push through the lower Tasman Sea on Sunday and Monday, generating strong reinforcing southerly swells for Monday and Tuesday, ahead of a slow easing trend into Wednesday. Even better, we’ll be under the influence of a weak high pressure ridge through this period so conditions should be clean throughout with light variable winds each day. 

Surf size should be quite solid at south facing beaches, fluctuating around 4-5ft on Monday and Tuesday though the Hunter’s likely to pull in occasional 5-6ft+ sets. Of course, anywhere else not open to the south will be a lot smaller. 

Looking further ahead, and the second half of next week and the following weeks are looking at much smaller surf, with a series of small southerly swell likely to keep expected beaches active with fun options.

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!