Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 24th April)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: small erratic pulses of S'ly swell at the swell magnets. Clean mornings. Mon: fun new S'ly swell, though winds could be iffy. Wed/Thurs: peaky NE swell and also a slowly building E/NE swell (that'll peak into the weekend). Winds look good from Thurs. Chance for a large S'ly swell next weekend. 

Recap: Two small south swells have graced the Southern NSW coast over the last few days. Though, their timing wasn’t quite as expected.  Rather than push along the coast at a similar time, the short range energy (from a fetch existing eastern Bass Strait) filled in on Thursday morning, offering 2ft sets across Sydney’s south facing beaches and 3ft+ at south swell magnets across the Hunter. A slightly larger, longer period swell pushed across the South Coast int he afternoon, reaching Sydney an hour before dark, and provided slightly larger sets in the 2ft+ and 3-4ft range respectively. Wave heights held in (just!) overnight for the early session this morning and have eased very slowly through the day, though there’s been a slightly broader coverage of surf today as the swell direction has gone slightly more S/SE (meaning, some beaches have done a little better today than yesterday). Generally light winds have created clean conditions.

Newcastle lining up nicely this morning

Small lines at Manly this morning

This weekend (Apr 25 - 26)

Looks like there’s not a lot in store for the weekend.

The current S/SE swell will ease rapidly overnight so we'll see minor residual energy at exposed beaches at best. Elsewhere will be tiny to flat. 

A series of powerful storms below the continent are very poor in their alignment, and although they’re generating large westerly swells for Tasmania and New Zealand, very little energy is expected to bend up along the Southern NSW coast. 

Exposed south swell magnets may see infrequent sets glance the region but for the most part we’re looking at tiny waves each day. If we’re lucky, we’ll see occasional 1-2ft sets at south facing beaches and the Hunter may be lucky and see rare 2-3ft sets, but there’ll be extremely long breaks between waves. I really wouldn’t recommend much effort looking for surf this weekend.  

As for conditions, Saturday morning will be clean with light offshore winds ahead of a freshening afternoon nor’easter (which may generate a tiny NE windswell for Sunday morning). A weak front passing to the south will swing winds back to the north-west on Sunday, keeping most open beaches nice and clean. 

Next week (Apr 27 onwards) 

Another strong front will cross Tasmania on Sunday, and it’ll push through the lower Tasman Sea late in the day, generating a fresh southerly swell for Monday morning. The models were initially keen on this pattern (last Monday), then weakened their outlook on Wednesday but have since come back to their original standing. So, we have a fun south swell on the way to start the working week.

It’ll be a short lived swell and may be adversely affected by an associated shallow southerly change, but most south facing beaches should push up somewhere in the 2ft, maybe 2-3ft range during the morning (from W/SW gales exiting eastern Bass Strait), with 3-4ft sets across the Hunter.

A second pulse of longer period energy is expected push along the South Coast after lunch but may not reach Sydney until the very end of the day, so I’m not sure if it’ll end up being useful for surfers north of the Illawarra - but slightly bigger waves are likely at most south facing beaches. Of course, anywhere not open to the south will be a lot smaller.  

If we are unlucky enough to see a moderate southerly flow develop in the morning, it should weaken to become light and variable by the afternoon. 

This south swell will then ease through Tuesday though early morning should offer some fun small waves at south facing beaches. Early light winds will precede freshening NE winds in the afternoon.

During this time, a broad trade flow will begin developing across the Coral Sea and Northern Tasman. I’m not expecting any major surf from this source but a small, gradual increase in E/NE swell is likely through the back half of the week, peaking into the weekend with maybe some 2-3ft sets at exposed beaches.

As for our southern swell window, we’ve got another significant development of the Long Wave Trough in store for our region. Unfortunately yet latest model runs have stalled this pattern over Victoria, consequently shutting down our swell window for a few days. 

Instead, we’re now likely to see a more prolonged influence from the downwards LWT flank, initially a local N’ly flow (and associated NE windswell on Wednesday) ahead of freshening W’ly winds on Thursday and a small mix of NE swells and distant E/NE swell (mentioned above). 

There is still some long term potential for solid southerly swells - more likely next weekend now - but given the big swings in the last few model runs we should be very cautious on the output at this point in time. So, let’s check in on Monday to see how it’s all panning out beyond Wednesday.

Have a great weekend!