Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 16th November)

Best Days: Wed: easing S'ly swells with light winds. Fri: building NE windswell with a chance for OK winds late arvo. Sun: small clean beachies. Early-mid-next week: chance for a fun E'ly swell from a new Tasman Low. 

Recap: Saturday and Sunday saw a small combination of initially easing NE windswell from 2-3ft to 1-2ft, and then mid range E’ly swells (1-2ft) with light winds through the mornings. Surf quality bottomed out this morning with freshening NE winds, but they’ve eased back this afternoon and conditions have cleaned up as the wind has dropped away. We’ve now got peaky 2ft+ sets across NE facing beaches for the late session.

Monday arvo NE windswell

This week (Nov 17 - 20)

Southerly swells are expected for the next few days, though no major size is expected. 

A vigorous front currently pushing through eastern Bass Strait is presently very westerly in alignment which isn’t great for swell prospects. However we’ll see a slight W/SW kink in the synoptic flow overnight (see below) and this will provide just enough directional incentive to allow a brief flush of south swell to push up the Southern NSW coast.

As such, early Tuesday morning will probably be undersized but we should see an upwards trend from mid-morning and the afternoon should pulse with 3ft sets at south facing beaches. Remaining beaches (not open to the south) will be much smaller but conversely, the Hunter usually picks up these south swells quite well so the late session should nudge 4ft at times. 

The issue on Tuesday will be a moderate to fresh S/SE breeze spreading across the coast before dawn, bumping up most open beaches. This will deteriorate surf conditions at all exposed locations, and protected southern ends will be tiny (today’s small NE swell will be almost all gone by Tuesday). 

Wednesday looks much better with light variable winds and easing S’ly swells from 2-3ft at south facing beaches (smaller elsewhere but bigger across the Hunter near 3-4ft at dawn). Expect a slow decrease in size throughout the day. 

Freshening northerly winds will then dominate the rest of the working week. Thursday morning will see a return to very small residual energy across the coast with very few rideable options, but as the breeze picks up in strength it’ll concurrently generate a local windswell.

It probably won’t become of a useful size until Friday (2-3ft exposed beaches, bigger south from Sydney) but an approaching southerly change will have to be closely monitored all week for signs of a late window of opportunity. Current model guidance has it into the Illawarra around dinnertime (too late to be of benefit to anywhere but the South Coast) but there’s a chance this may be sped up in later model runs. 

Also worth mentioning that a small flukey long period south swell may glance exposed south swell magnets on Friday, originating from a powerful albeit poorly aligned cut-off low well south of the continent over the coming days. Very strong winds around the low are likely to generate swell periods in excess of 19-20 seconds, but most of the swell generation will occur inside the Tasmanian swell shadow and will also be off-axis from our swell window. So I’m not really expecting anything from it, but it’s worth keeping an eye on the buoys for signs of life.

This weekend (Nov 21 - 22)

This coming weeks looks a little average but there’ll be waves. 

A small fetch trailing Friday’s late S’ly change should generate a fresh southerly swell for exposed beaches (2-3ft) though there’s a risk of a lingering southerly breeze across the region. Sunday is a safer bet for better conditions under a light variable airstream but this south swell will be easing by then.

Saturday should also see some leftover NE swell from Friday, though it will also be easing in size. Early 2ft sets will abate to 1ft by the afternoon so southern corners will be your best option under the likely southerly flow. 

At this stage Sunday’s shaping up to be a little smaller but surfable at the swell magnets. 

Next week (Nov 23 onwards)

The weekend’s coastal troughiness is expected to spin up into a new closed low in the Tasman Sea early next week and there’s good potential for a decent east swell through the middle of the week. More on this in Wednesday’s update.