Sydney Hunter Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Fri 14th Feb)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• More E/NE swell for Sat with an early S'ly change easing into the a'noon
• Easing E/NE swell Sun with easing E/NE swells and building S'ly swells, temp light AM winds
• Large sideband S/SE swell and solid E/NE swell building Mon, peaking Tues, easing Wed
• Easing S'ly winds Mon, best conditions Tues/Wed with light winds and sea breezes
• More S'ly swell next weekend
• More E/NE swell the following week

Recap

Gusty NE winds built local windswells into the 3-5ft range across exposed beaches on Thursday though quality was patchy thanks to the breezy conditions. An underlying E/NE groundswell added extra strength to the surf zone. Wave heights and wind strength has abated overnight, with slightly better (though still average) surf around 3ft. 

This weekend (Feb 15-16)

Looks like a great weekend of waves ahead, on the balance.

The current E/NE groundswell is expected to muscle up from today, thanks to a jump in swell period, sourced from a tropical low embedded in a broad monsoon trough across the Coral Sea, South West Pacific and Northern Tasman Sea over the last few days.

Surf size should rebuild back up into the 4ft range across open NE facing beaches, and there’ll also be some smaller peaky NE windswell in the mix too (from local winds adjacent the Southern NSW coast at the moment). 

As for conditions, a shallow southerly change is expected into the Sydney region just before dawn, with only a slim chance of a brief window of light winds across the Hunter region before it blows conditions out - temporarily.

The good news is that whilst early morning will see wind affected conditions across exposed locations, the change should peter out fairly quickly and by the afternoon winds are likely to be down to 10kts or less, which will result in lumpy but improving conditions (could even be glassy by late in the day).

And, southern ends should offer good waves all day as they’ll offer protection from the southerly breeze anyway. So there's no need for an early session, the best waves will probably happen into the afternoon.

Another southerly change will push through overnight Saturday, but we’ll see a temporary respite at dawn with a brief light SW flow across the coast (expect freshening S/SW winds will kick in by mid-late morning, becoming gusty into the afternoon).

Saturday’s E/NE swell will ease back into Sunday (3ft) but the good news is that we’ll see a series of overlapping south swells generated by the parent front to these local southerly changes. Early morning will likely be undersized in the 3ft range (south facing beaches) but mid-late afternoon should push up into the 4-5ft range, possibly some bigger 6ft sets across reliable south swell magnets like the Hunter - though these locations will be very wind affected.

As such, southern corners will be your best options all day with a mix of easing E/NE swell and building S’ly swell. 

Next week (Feb17 onwards)

We’ve got stacks of swell for next week too.

The front associated with Sunday's change is expected to form a deep Tasman Low on Monday, mid-way between Australia and New Zealand. It’ll remain slow moving, a factor that when combined with gale force winds slingshotting around its western flank (see below), should offset its poor alignment within our swell window. 

The fetch will be mainly aimed towards New Caledonia and Fiji, but we should see a reasonable spread back into the East Coast of Australia (though with easing wave heights as you travel south).

As such I’m expecting the trend to temporarily dip on Monday morning, ahead of a rebuilding sideband S/SE swell into the afternoon that should offer strong 5-6ft surf at south facing beaches late in the day (potentially some bigger sets across the Hunter and other reliable south swell magnets). A peak will then hold into Tuesday before easing from the afternoon onwards.

At the same time, we’ll also see another round of E/NE groundswell from current activity along the monsoon trough south of Fiji. Gale force E/NE winds feeding into a deepening low pressure trough will deliver a strong E/NE groundswell that’s also expected to build slowly on Monday before a strong peak kicks in on Tuesday with size around 3-5ft, before gradually easing from Wednesday onwards.

Local winds look a little tricky early Monday with lingering southerlies associated with the deepening Tasman Low, but they’ll ease through the day and should be light by the afternoon.

Tuesday is the pick of the forecast period with light offshore winds and weak afternoon sea breezes, accompanying the early peak in S/SE groundswell and late peak in E/NE groundswell. The combination of both swells could result in some impressive, sizeable beachbreaks at select locations.

Similar conditions are expected on Wednesday but with easing wave heights from both sources. 

Looking further ahead and the end of the week will see small, more subdued surf conditions ahead of a fresh southerly swell later Friday or Saturday, and another extended run of E/NE groundswell during the first half of next week as the monsoon trough re-establishes itself across our NE swell window. This is expected to generate another long-lived pulse of quality summer swell for the majority of the East Coast.

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!