Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Guy Dixon (issued Friday 5th February)

Best Days: Every morning from Sunday

Recap: 

Gusty southerly breezes have been lashing the coast over the past couple of days creating choppy, blown out conditions. There has been a healthy kick in size to the 4-6ft range, however the quality is lacking. Better days to come.

This weekend (Saturday 6th - Sunday 7th):

Today’s fresh-strong southerly breeze is forecast to ease back a touch and swing southeasterly, making it pretty hard to find a decent setup on Saturday.

Surf size wont be an issue, with 3-5ft sets filling in generated by better quality fetches associated with a central Tasman low over the past few days. 

Last night’s satellite passes observed southeasterly fetches of 35kts, which should provide slightly longer swell periods and more organised lines. However, there will be very few options to score a clean wave under persistent and gusty southeasterly breezes that will be pushing in just about everywhere.

Sunday morning on the other hand should offer the next best window for a clean wave as winds swing light southwesterly for the early session.

The surf should continue to ebb and pulse in the 3-5ft range as we see energy fill in from intensification as this Tasman low drifts east towards the ‘land of the long white cloud’ this evening.

Southerly groundswell is also due to build across exposed south swell magnets on Saturday afternoon off a frontal progression which passed through the swell window on Thursday. Off this system we should see less consistent sets in the 2-3ft range by the afternoon, fading during Sunday.

Southern corners of the open beaches hold the best chance for a clean wave, with the potential for some residual scarring elsewhere.

A southeasterly breeze should then become re-established, although remaining light into the afternoon allowing for an afternoon of slightly bumpy, yet workable waves.

Next week (Monday 8th onward):

As the Tasman low drifts northward during the weekend, a broad but weak southeasterly fetch will continue to work on the active sea state that is the Tasman sea, ultimately slowing the easing trend of swell.

As a result, Monday should see the surf fade from the 3-4ft range, further on Tuesday from the 2-3ft range.

Both morning’s should see light southwesterly breezes, cleaning up the surf for the early session, particularly across the open beaches before being excluded by a moderate south/southeasterly airflow.

Earlier this week we had been monitoring an east/southeasterly fetch that looked to develop over Cook Strait, however this system has now been so heavily downgraded that it’s impacts will be negligible.

Each swell window then looks to take a brief hiatus during Sunday before two systems come into play on Monday.

Firstly, a frontal progression is expected to steer a small, tight but intense westerly fetch of 40-50kt winds over the Southern Ocean, providing sideband energy for the south swell magnets due later on Wednesday.

Secondly, the low that never says die has the potential to deepen one last time over central/northern parts of the Tasman, causing a southerly fetch to increase to around 20-30kts on Monday into Tuesday.

This should maintain a steady flow of surf to around 2ft on Tuesday and Wednesday, possibly pulsing to 3ft at times by Thursday.

At this stage, the surf is looking to remain clean for the majority of the morning on Wednesday under a light/variable airflow, similarly on Thursday.