Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 15th May)

Best Days: Great waves every day! Becoming a little small on Tues and it'll remain very inconsistent for most of next week but there'll be plenty of options. 

Recap: Southerly wind affected conditions on Thursday accompanied a building S’ly swell that reached 3-4ft at south facing beaches, with bigger waves across the Hunter. Interestingly, whilst the S’ly change reached southern Sydney around 2:30am, and eventually the Central Coast around 7am, there was an unusual delay across the Northern Beaches where offshore winds persisted until 10:30am, creating a window of clean surf. The southerly swell has eased back today, and winds have generally swung light offshore (apart from periods of S/SW winds across the Hunter), and we’ve seen building E’ly swells from 2-3ft to 3-5ft throughout the day. However, not all coasts have seen this size range yet, some stretches are yet to see the new energy. But, check the images (below) from Manly a short time ago.. it’s pulsing nicely.

A-frame

Arvo sets at Manly

Hollow insider runs through to the keeper 

Dark blue corduroy

This weekend (May 16 - 17)

So, here’s the new swell, punching slightly higher than forecast though well within trend expectations. 

Model guidance has this event peaking on Saturday with more size in the swell and more strength in the period, but to be honest I just can’t see it getting much bigger. Given the source of this swell (a stationary trough just north of New Zealand mid-week), the strength and width of the fetch was too small and far away to generate genuine 6ft sets. 

There’ll also be some small E/SE swell in the mix from a modest ridge through the central Tasman Sea today. 

As such, I’m going cautiously keep surf size similar to today with 3-5ft sets across most open beaches on Saturday, holding into Sunday but gradually easing. 

Local conditions look great with generally light variable winds. Get out and into it!

Next week (May 18 onwards)

The source of our current E/NE swell has merged into a broad trough extending eastwards from New Zealand longitudes out into the South Pacific. 

There’s a healthy fetch sitting on the southern flank of this setup though it’s right on the periphery of the swell window, if anything partially inside the NZ swell shadow (see below). This will restrict potential surf size across Southern NSW for what’s an otherwise excellent distant swell source.

Although we’ve already had a couple of days of E/NE swell from the broader synoptic system, and a whole weekend of additional energy to come, next week looks like it’ll maintain flukey, intermittent E/NE swells thanks to the fetch remaining active until about Monday or Tuesday. With a travel time of four or five days from this region, we should see some kind of E/NE swell across Southern NSW right up through into next weekend.

Of course, it won’t be seven days (well, twelve if you count from when the first energy arrived on Tuesday) of non-stop corduroy - there’ll be alternating periods of slow, lully surf and then other times when it pulses nicely. 

Current expectations are for Sunday afternoon’s easing trend to level out to an inconsistent 2-3ft on Monday, before dropping a little more into Tuesday morning, then pulsing sometime very late Tuesday through Wednesday and Thursday around 3ft+, before easing back a little bit from Friday into the weekend. I’ll take a closer look on Monday once we’ve got some satellite data in.

But let me reiterate: it'll be very inconsistent.

Thursday will also see some new mid-range NE swell from the western flank of a high pressure system in the eastern Tasman Sea. No major size is expected but we’ll see a couple of feet off peaky surf persisting into the weekend. 

And our southern swell window is also looking really good. The storm track is off-axis right now, but a deep series of polar lows below the country early next week will generate long period energy for the East Coast, reaching the Far South Coast later Thursday and then pushing across remaining regions for Friday. It’s still early days but south facing beaches are likely to reach an inconsistent 4-5ft+ and the long periods should push reliable south swell magnets up into the 6ft, maybe 6-8ft range. 

There's also a suggestion that a small long period S'ly swlel may glance Southern NSW later Tues and Wed from a strong frontal progression under the continent right now, but I don't think we'll see much size from it, only favouring south swell magnets with inconsistent 1-2ft+ sets at best. 

As for local winds, most of next week looks OK under a broad troughy pattern. There’ll be a few dicey windows but on the balance it’s shaping up to be pretty good on the surface. 

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!