Fun weekend of waves ahead

Ben Matson picture
Ben Matson (thermalben)

Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 4th April)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: peak in long range E/NE swell, with mainly light winds in the mornings.

Recap: Small peaky mix of swells with onshore SE winds Tuesday easing back and tending S’ly today, though still not offering great options. There’s been 2ft+ of surf out of the south and E/NE.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This week (Apr 5th - 6th)

The wave models have a couple of long period south swells filling in over the coming days, firstly around 15 seconds on Thursday and then boosting to 16 seconds on Friday. The source of these swells is a series of strong though poorly aligned Southern Ocean lows, and with associated swell heights of only 0.2m I’m not especially confident that we’ll see much size in the surf department.

Still, we can’t ignore flukey south swells, because despite a low likelihood that they’ll light up many beaches, a few select south swells magnets will probably pull in stray sets. Therefore, won’t be surprised if some reliable locations (mainly across the Hunter coast) see occasional 2-3ft+ sets through Thursday afternoon and into Friday.

Otherwise, a small persistent trade swell will maintain peaky 2ft+ surf across open beaches into Thursday and early Friday, before rebuilding sometime on Friday with a larger pulse of E/NE groundswell originating from TC Josie, located NE of New Zealand earlier in the week. This swell won’t really start to push towards a peak until Saturday and I’m not particularly confident on the timing of this event, but I suspect we may start to see a building trend into Friday afternoon around 2-3ft+ across NE facing beaches. Expect long breaks between the sets though.

Winds look generally OK over the next few days though they’ll cause a few problems at exposed beaches with occasional periods of freshening northerlies (but mainly light and variable in the mornings). A shallow S’ly change will advance up the South Coast on Thursday night but it’s expected to peter out before reaching Sydney in the early hours of Friday morning, so probably won’t be noticeable at many spots, perhaps just the Illawarra for the dawn patrol, before light and variable winds resume and afternoon NE sea breezes kick up again. 

So, it won’t be perfect but should be quite reasonable.

This weekend (Apr 7th - 8th)

The weekend’s wind outlook has been reversed since Monday’s notes. 

A small trough is expected to develop off the coast over the weekend, resulting in light and variable winds early Saturday ahead of a freshening N/NE flow into the afternoon that may cause some bumpiness.

Another shallow S’ly change pushing up the South Coast overnight may push a little further north (than Thursday night’s shallow S’ly change) into Sunday morning, just clipping the Sydney region. However it’ll return to a light variable flow throughout the day before afternoon sea breezes kick in again.


As for surf, we’ll see a mix of small S’ly groundswell across exposed south swell magnets, but a more prominent (though inconsistent) E/NE groundswell from TC Josie, that should provide occasional 3ft+ sets about exposed beaches on Saturday. Wave heights should persist into Sunday morning though ease slightly during the day. Again, expect very long breaks between the sets. And aim for an early surf for the best waves, with the northern corners expected to remain the cleanest for the longest period of time.

Next week (Apr 9th onwards)

A stubborn ridge of high pressure will ensure our near swell window remains inactive throughout the longer term, period. However, we have plenty of swell sources to keep a watch on. Firstly, a series of poorly aligned but active fronts will continue to supply small S’ly swells for exposed beaches throughout much of next week.

More prominently, a deepening tropical system west of Fiji this weekend is expected to evolve into a Tropical Cyclone, and should generate another E/NE groundswell for the second half of next week. Further activity is expected in the tropical beyond this so we can look forward to a steady diet from this quadrant for the foreseeable future. 

See you Friday!

Comments

W41's picture
W41's picture
W41 Thursday, 5 Apr 2018 at 1:04pm

Slow start to our Autumn this year around Sydney! Hopefully we start to get a kick in power and height soon! Been a while since I have ridden a nice solid 5 ft wave without having to travel a while to
find a direct facing beach.

udo's picture
udo's picture
udo Friday, 6 Apr 2018 at 6:34am

Nice conditions at Manly this morning.

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Friday, 6 Apr 2018 at 7:09am

Good new east energy but a weak southerly has moved through taking the sheen off it. Looks fun still.

John Eyre's picture
John Eyre's picture
John Eyre Friday, 6 Apr 2018 at 11:16pm

Decent......... looking ok