Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Fri 23rd August)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small mix of flukey south swell and NE windswell this weekend, nothing special though
• Small flush of south swell Tuesday
• Better pulse of south swell Thursday, and again Friday

Recap

Easing S/SE swells on Thursday managed stray 2ft sets at south facing beaches (up to 2-3ft in the Hunter) before easing to 1-2ft today. A small NE windswell signal has also been in the mix. Conditions have been generally clean with light winds.

This weekend (Aug 24-25)

Looks like a pretty average weekend of waves ahead.

Freshening northerly winds overnight will continue to strengthen into Saturday, though local effects may briefly steer this flow to the N/NW early morning. Winds will then trend more NW overnight before easing into Sunday morning ahead of a restrengthening into the afternoon.

As for surf, we’ve got a few small pulses of flukey south swell on the way, generated by poorly aligned fronts sliding south of Tasmania at the moment. The first will have largely bypassed the Sydney region by Saturday morning, so most spots will dip out though south swell magnets north form Sydney to Newcastle may see the odd stray 1-2ft set glancing the coast.

A second swell will then offer similarly flukey opportunities on Sunday, with only small surf at reliable south swell magnets and very little elsewhere. They're both low confidence events so don't bank on much excitement.

Otherwise, we should see some short range NE windswell from the local fetch currently developing off the coast.

Wave heights probably won’t reach much more than 2ft across Sydney’s NE facing beaches on Saturday afternoon (smaller earlier), though bigger surf is likely south from the Illawarra (thanks to the longer fetch length), and bear in mind that the Hunter doesn’t usually respond well to these swells (so expect little action here). The afternoon’s peak in size will be accompanied by fresh winds so quality won’t be high.


Very early Sunday morning should see a touch more size - perhaps 2ft+ across Sydney’s NE facing beaches (usual caveats elsewhere) but the swell source will have begun to weaken on Saturday evening, so I am a little worried that surf size will peak overnight and be already trending down by dawn. Either way, expect a steady easing trend through the morning, and tiny conditions by the afternoon. Conditions will be cleaner though.

All in all, there’ll be small waves at the swell magnets but it won’t be especially great.

Next week (Aug 26 onwards)

Ignore the benign swell chart (see below) - we have swell on the way for next week, albeit very flukey from the south - so therefore likely to affect only a smaller percentage of the Southern NSW coast.

A strong cold front will cross Victoria on Sunday afternoon, and we’ll see W/SW gales exiting eastern Bass Strait on Monday (see below).

This should give rise to a brief flush of south swell for Tuesday morning, reaching 2-3ft at reliable south facing beaches, a little more across the Hunter region (occ 4ft sets). It won’t last long though and will trend down into the afternoon, and beaches without good southerly exposure will be much smaller. Conditions look clean with offshore winds.

A similar, though stronger frontal progression is then expected Wednesday which should provide a slightly bigger round of acute south swell for Thursday, with a stronger following front trailing behind generating incrementally bigger waves into Friday. It’s still early days but we could pick up 3-4ft sets at south facing beaches by the end of the week, bigger across the Hunter.

The long term outlook maintains similarly strong fronts across SE Australia which should provide intermittent small to medium sized south swells for the foreseeable future.

Also, it’s worth noting some trade activity and a potential tropical low way out in the South Pacific from this weekend into early next week but it’s generally too weak and too distant to be a reliable swell source. The upcoming south swells will probably be a better bet, so we’ll concentrate on them - but will cast a watchful eye to our east early next week just to be sure.

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!