Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wed Oct 2nd)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Large kick in SE swell Sat with good winds
• Easing size Sun with good winds
• Building S'ly windswell Tues, but with accompanying S'ly winds
• Building S'ly groundswell Wed, with light winds
• Punchy S'ly windswell Friday
• Good chance for a decent S'ly groundswell next weekend

Recap

Building S’ly swells have generally favoured the Central Coast and Newcastle regions for the most size over the last few days. Exposed spots built from 2-3ft yesterday to 3-4ft today (slightly smaller surf, south from the Northern Beaches) ahead of a bigger pulse due later today. Light morning winds both days preceded moderate E/NE breezes Thursday morning and now fresh NE breezes this afternoon.

This weekend (Oct 5 - 6)

We’ve got some great waves due this weekend, with light offshore winds both days and only weak sea breeze an outside risk each afternoon.

The Tasman Low that’s been discussed all week has generated a strong pulse of SE groundswell that will start to fill in properly overnight, building towards a peak that’ll probably occur mid-late Saturday morning, before slowly easing down later inthe afternoon and more prominently into Sunday.

At its peak, open beaches should reach a peak in the 5-6ft range though the offshore bombies should pick up bigger waves at times.

Sunday’s swell trend will ease from 3-5ft to 2-3ft throughout the day so aim for an early paddle for the best waves. 

Next week (Oct 7 onwards)

The next swell generating system will enter our south swell window on Monday as a cut-off low SE of Tasmania (see below), which means we won’t see an increase from it until Wednesday.

Actually, Tuesday will see an increase in local southerly windswell from a local front associated with the low, but the main swell will be a Wednesday event - when winds will be better anyway.

Tuesday’s short range southerly swell will be accompanied by mainly moderate to fresh S’ly breezes (chance for a brief window of lighter SW winds on the Northern Beaches early), with size building to 3-4ft. Quality won’t be high at those beachies picking up the size.

Wednesday on the other hand looks fun for reliable south facing beaches with 3-4ft of stronger groundswell, and light morning offshore winds tending variable through the day. The low does look pretty impressive in the synoptic chart above, but it tracks quickly to the east which will limit its size potential.

Both days will see much smaller surf at beaches not open to the south.

Rapidly easing south swell on Thursday will be accompanied by strengthening N’ly tending N/NE winds as a strong front approaches from the west. In fact, there is a chance that the front could cross the coast in the last few hours of the day, in which case we could see a late session of fun peaky NE windswell in the 3ft range (on top of a small easing S’ly swell). We’ll take a closer look at the timing in Monday’s update.

Otherwise, a short lived, punchy southerly swell will then round out the week on Friday, ahead of a better S’ly groundswell of polar origins over the weekend, sourced from an impressive front pushing up under Tasmania and into the lower Tasman Sea during the week. This looks very promising.

Have a great weekend!