Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 8th June)

Best Days: Small surf at open south facing beaches most days this week. Good winds, except Tues (risk of onshores north from Sydney). 

Recap: Saturday delivered excellent surf with offshore winds and 4ft+ SE swell across most open beaches. Size eased a little into Sunday but still maintained 3ft sets at most open beaches, ahead of a new long period S’ly swell that lifted size slightly across south swell magnets into the afternoon. Conditions remained clean through the morning but moderate southerly winds developed into the afternoon. Wave heights have held out into today with persistent 3-4ft surf at south facing beaches from a couple of sources. A window of light offshore winds occurred across the Northern Beaches but most other coasts saw freshening crossshore S/SW winds from early on.

This week (June 9 - 12)

*This week's Forecaster Notes will be a little sporadic, and sometimes brief, as Craig is on leave*

First glance of the swell charts doesn’t look terribly inspiring. But there are some waves on the way.

A small weak low that formed off the coast yesterday is developing an easterly fetch around its southern flank. This system is moving slowly north, gradually out of our swell window, but will generate a peaky E’ly swell for Tuesday that’ll arrest the otherwise easing trend out of the south.

No major size is likely but most open beaches should pick up occasional 2-3ft sets. There’s a risk of a lingering E/SE breeze north from Sydney through to the Hunter, but locations south of Sydney should see lighter, more variable winds.

Very late afternoon, the leading edge of the first in a series of long period southerly groundswells will glance the Far South Coast, having been generated by intense though poorly aligned lows well south of the continent at the moment. They’re aiming most of their energy into the South Pacific, but we’ll see a small spread of energy up the coast, providing 2-3ft waves for south facing beaches (occ bigger Hunter) through Wednesday, with a slightly longer period swell on Thursday nudging wave heights a little bigger. It’ll be extremely inconsistent though.

Most other beaches will be much smaller, seeing minor leftovers from Tuesday’s short range E’ly swell and then a small spread of E/NE swell from a ridge through the Northern Tasman Sea. Expect lots of waiting around for set waves.

Gradually easing size - though still quite rideable at south swell magnets - is then expected through Friday. However we’ll see some small lines of E/NE swell from a distant storm way out near Tahiti late last week. Again, no major size is likely but occasional 2ft+ sets can’t be ruled out. A late pulse of new S'ly swell is on the cards too (discussed below, for Saturday).

A weak pressure gradient across the coast all week will maintain generally light variable winds for the most part. Note: ‘variable’ does mean ‘from any direction’ but the most likely scenario is early offshore, afternoon onshore (if anything). 

This weekend (June 13 - 14)

Early indications are for small swells from the same sources as this week (E/NE and long period S), with freshening northerly winds on Saturday as a vigorous frontal progression approaches from the west.

Although the swell charts aren't showing much potential, I like the look of a front south of Tasmania later Wed/Thurs (see below), which should provide fun waves out of the south late Friday through Saturday, in the 2-3ft+ range at south facing beaches, a little bigger through the Hunter (though terribly inconsistent). Of course, we'll need the wind outlook to improve a little for our surf potential to improve.

Winds will swing NW thru’ W/NW on Sunday in the lee of the change but we'll see easing southerly swells and therefore only small waves at exposed beaches. 

As such it’s not looking especially great, but I'll firm up the outlook on Wednesday.

Next week (June 15 onwards)

There’s a couple of swell sources lining up for the long term, though it may be a while until we see some significant waves. 

An amplifying node of the Long Wave Trough over SA will drive strong fronts through the Bight into the weekend, initially way too north in latitude for every out most remote, flukey south swell window. There’s a suggestion a deep low below Tasmania on Monday could provide some decent south swell for later Tues/Wed, but these kinds of systems on the front flank of the LWT are much less assured as they’re tracking away from our swell window, so I’m being very cautious on its potential right now.

However the swell widow should start to fire up early to mid-next week onwards as the LWT migrates towards the Tasman Sea. Later next week and the following weekend in particular are likely to be quite sizeable from the south. 

Peripheral swell sources will occupy our NE swell window, by way of a slow moving ridge stretching form the northern Tasman Sea into the South Pacific. We won’t see any great surf from this source but it’ll probably stop the open beaches from becoming flat next week.

See you Wednesday!