Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 12th June)

Best Days: Fun peaky waves over the weekend, biggest Sat with a new S'ly swell. Winds may be a little tricky later Sat and early Sun (best early Sat and later Sun). 

Recap: We’ve had some good waves over the last few days, with a mix of swells from the south and east/north-east at the very top end of forecast expectations, and generally light winds (though moderate southerlies did pop up Thursday afternoon). Size has been up to 2-3ft at most open beaches, with a few bigger waves on offer at south swell magnets on Thursday afternoon as the new S’ly groundswell kicked in.

Late Friday lines at Manly

This weekend (June 13 - 14)

The models have had a pretty poor time over the last few days, and I reckon they’re missing yet another south swell due to push into the coast on Saturday. This was generated by the final trailing polar low in a sequence (which also generated our recent south swell yesterday and today) and provided good surf through Victoria today. 

No major size is expected, but south swell magnets should slowly build into the 2-3ft+ range on Saturday before easing into Sunday. Set waves will be extremely inconsistent, and will only just glance the swell magnets so expect small residual E/NE swell elsewhere in the 2ft range both days.

Local conditions look pretty good. Light variable/offshore winds are expected early Saturday, ahead of a freshening pre-frontal N’ly breeze through the afternoon (that should generate some small NE windswell for Sunday, just a couple of feet). 

The associated W’ly change is due at the coast early-mid morning Sunday, so we may start the day with lumpy/leftover conditions under a moderate N’ly tending N/NW breeze. Once the offshore kicks in it’ll iron out the bumps nicely.

Next week (June 15 onwards)

A strong high pressure ridge north of New Zealand will generate easterly swells for Northern NSW early next week that will spread back down into Southern NSW, albeit smaller in side. This should maintain slow, peaky 2ft surf at exposed beaches for much of the week. It's not a dependable swell source though so keep your expectations low. 

Sunday’s pre-frontal N’ly airstream will extend quite a fair way back into the central/northern Tasman Sea, and will generate a peaky NE swell for Monday (2ft most open beaches, a little bigger south form Sydney due to the better alignment). Again, this won't produce great waves but it'll be rideable at most beaches under a light offshore/variable breeze. 

A vigorous storm track below the continent from this weekend onwards still looks poorly aligned for NSW coasts. The flow will generally be W/NW across our south swell window, with only the final low pressure system - expected below Tasmania on Tuesday - likely to tilt back in our favour (see below). 

It’s modelled to be a very strong, broad system (though still not especially well aligned) so we should see a reasonable south swell push up into Southern NSW late Wednesday (Far South Coast) and Thursday (remaining Southern NSW) but local conditions look average thanks to an associated front that’s expected push along the coast on Wednesday, delivering a S’ly change and a local windswell, tending SE into Thursday as a new high pressure ridge builds across the Qld coast.

So, Thursday’s south swells looks like it may be spoiled by poor winds. No major size is likely anyway, just a few 3ft+ sets at south facing beaches (bigger across the Hunter), and patchy in coverage thanks to a poor alignment in the swell window.

The long term outlook has some interesting development to our north-east with a strong ridge building across the Northern Tasman Sea later next week (maybe an embedded low too), and a good chance for some easterly swell next weekend. 

See you Monday!