Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 1st January)

Best Days: Lots of fun waves most days; solid late Sat/Sun and again Wed. Winds may cause some issues Mon/Tues but there should be lighter morning options. 

Recap: Plenty of fun beaches over the last few days with sets around 3ft on Thursday easing a little today. Conditions have been clean with mainly favourable winds. 

This weekend (January 2nd - 3rd)

A new E’ly swell is expected to fill into the region throughout Saturday. There may be a slight lag at dawn (read: small leftover surf) but otherwise we should see an upwards trend all morning ahead of a peak in the afternoon. 

The source of this swell is a merger between a small Tasman low (responsible for Thurs’ nice SE pulse) and another tropical low near New Caledonia on Wednesday, which intensified on Thursday and developed a fresh band of easterly gales. The broader system has tracked south-west, and at the same time the fetch has aligned more E/SE and then SE; though winds were broadly close to model expectations (I thought they may go higher). This storm track means that we’re going to see an initial E/NE swell veer clockwise throughout Saturday (i.e. E’ly then E/SE).  

A second fetch of E’ly winds developed just west of New Zealand’s North Island late yesterday and this will contribute additional energy to the mix, though the fetch is aimed mainly at points south of Wollongong.  

The upshot of all of this is that we’re looking at a building trend towards 3-5ft at NE facing beaches by Saturday afternoon, with size holding in and around the 4-5ft mark on Sunday as the swell direction tends more E’ly. South facing beaches will be smaller due to the swell direction, and the sets will be a little inconsistent at times owing to the relatively distant swell source.

Local winds are looking very good on Saturday (light and variable with afternoon sea breezes), though Sunday is at risk of seeing freshening E/SE winds as a new ridge builds through the Southern Tasman. I think we’ll see a reasonable period of light variable winds through the morning but you’ll have to keep your eyes out for any change in conditions after lunch. 

Next week (January 4th onwards)

The long term outlook is still fantastic. TD05F has rapidly intensified into a Tropical Cyclone east of Fiji, and is in fact now Category 3 status (Severe Tropical Cyclone Ula). 

Ordinarily, tropical cyclones east of New Zealand rarely get me excited, but STC Ula has a couple of notable characteristics that should ensure excellent surf for the entire East Coast of Australia:

1. STC Ula is tracking slowly westward (and eventually W/SW), and is expected to maintain a slow movement in this direction - at strength - for some time, which is unusual. This will help to enhance wave heights, probably through the creation of a captured fetch. 

2. STC Ula has a broad supporting ridge stretching all the way south to New Zealand. No only is this helping to prime the ocean ahead of its passage (by activating the sea state, therefore requiring less energy to generate significant swells), it also helps to enhance the broader westward storm track and will also generate useful (if somewhat lower period) swell that’ll fill out the backside of the primary swell event. 

3. STC Ula will remain quite some distance from the mainland. Normally this lowers my expectations for surf locally, but because of the factors listed above it’s actually a positive as it means we’ll see regularly spaced, moderately consistent groundswell across the coast (closer systems produce much more consistent swells, but sometimes of varying quality due to the wide range in swell periods arriving concurrently). STC Ula’s large distance from the mainland also means we’ll stand a better chance of more favourable winds, as it won’t have any local effect (though, we may see tricky conditions thanks to another coastal trough - but that’s another story).

4. STC Ula’s position just south of Fiji is in an ideal spot for the entire East Coast - just inside the swell window but slightly north of SE Qld’s latitude, which means we should see a reasonably broad coverage of quality groundswell across the entire region (all the way to Southern NSW too). 

Just to backtrack for a moment - Monday and Tuesday are looking at residual, easing E’ly swell from the weekend but some building mid-range SE thru’ E/SE swell from the Tasman ridge developing on Sunday.

This should maintain 3-4ft surf across most beaches, maybe some bigger sets at swell magnets. Local winds are tricky to pin down thanks to the presence of that ridge - which will remain slow moving - but at this stage early light winds are possible with freshening easterlies throughout the days. Tuesday looks less favourable with the ridge a little firmer and closer to the coast (i.e. we may not see a morning period of variable winds).

On Wednesday, the leading edge of the new E/NE swell from STC Ula should start to appear. At this stage there’s still enough confidence to expect some solid sets across exposed coasts, anywhere between 3ft and 5ft by the afternoon, though there’ll be extremely long breaks between them.

Let me emphasise this once again: the bigger set waves will be VERY inconsistent - they'll be sourced from STC Ula itself, which whilst an amazingly strong system, is only small in diameter and a large distance form the coast. And STC Ula will have to pass through the Fijian archipelago over the coming days (see below), which - depending on exactly where it tracks - could have an impact on swell potential. 

So in general you'll probably be surfing a mix of supporting mid-range swells around 3ft or so.

As for local conditions on Wednesday, we’re still likely to have the ridge positioned nearby but model guidance suggests any local strengthening Mon/Tues will ease by Wed which should hopefully improve surf conditions. Let’s take another pass at this in Monday’s update. 

Then to pad out the last two days of the week, we’re looking at a slowly easing combo of E/NE groundswell, mid-range SE swell (from the Tasman fetch) and mid-range E/NE swell (from the supporting fetch south of STC Ula). 

In fact, the longer term outlook maintains some degree of reasonable E’ly airstream through our far eastern swell window through most of next week, which suggests there’ll be useful E/NE swell right through next weekend too. 

On Wednesday I also mentioned the chance for an ECL developing within the mid-week coastal trough - this broader pattern is still likely though an ECL probably won’t occur. Either way, in addition to the long range E’ly swell sources for the long term, it looks like there’ll be plenty of swell potential originating from the Tasman Sea as well.

Which means: waves pretty much every day. 

Bring it on! See you Monday.