Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 28th February)

Best Days:  

Fri: fun mix of swells with periods of light winds. Sat: light winds early, easing S'ly swells. Mon/Tues: keep an eye out for a small, long range E'ly swell. Winds look tricky though

Recap: Strong though easing SE swells have provided good windows of waves over the last few days. Tuesday saw the surf rebuild to 3-4ft and early offshore across a few select locations before moderate southerlies kicked in. A more regional NW flow maintained excellent conditions this morning with 3-4ft sets still on offer out of the SE. Winds have now gone around to the NE. 

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This week (Mar 1 - Mar 2)

Model guidance has marginally sped up the arrival of the southerly change on Thursday morning so it looks like our final pulse of SE swell will largely go to waste. We’re expecting SW tending S’ly winds into Sydney a few hours before dawn, even the Hunter region will be lucky to see an early window of favourable opportunity.

As for surf, today’s mid-range SE swell will ease ahead of a building SE groundswell generated by a low that developed off New Zealand’s South Island on Tuesday. Satellite winds came in a little under model predictions so I’m going to ease back the projected surf size (yikes! Did I not learn anything last week!), but it’s a moot point anyway as we’ll be under a moderate to fresh southerly flow. Sets should increase into the 3-4ft range again throughout the day (may be undersized at dawn). If we're super lucky there'll be a few bigger bombs late afternoon. 

Local southerlies will also generate a short range south swell that’ll concurrently build into the afternoon with bumpy 3ft+ sets at south facing beaches. 

As for Friday, we’ll see the SE swell slowly ease but the local S’ly swell should muscle up a touch, thanks to an anchored though only modest S’ly fetch off Tasmania’s East Coast throughout Thursday. This should keep size around 3-4ft at south facing beaches (smaller elsewhere with easing SE swell). Moderate S’ly winds are expected throughout the day but we’ll see local regions of early light W/SW winds. 

This weekend (Mar 3 - 4)

Friday’s combo of easing SE and steady S’ly swell will ease into Saturday.

By and large there are no major new swell sources for the weekend. A small low will develop pff the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island on Thursday night, and this will provide a minor flush of S/SE swell into Sunday but it’ll mainly just arrest the otherwise easing trend. 

Saturday morning will see the most size, with 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches (mainly north of Sydney thru the Hunter) with much smaller surf elsewhere. Expect size to level out around 1-2ft at south facing beaches through the afternoon and into Sunday. 

Winds look tricky this weekend under a trough pattern, so be prepared for periods of mediocrity. Though, there will be brief windows of clean conditions (mainly in the mornings). 

Next week (Mar 5 onwards)

A series of Southern Ocean fronts throughout the forecast period look poorly aligned for our swell window, so I’m disregarding them for any major swell potential.

A small but interesting tropical low is expected to form north of New Zealand over the coming days, and although displaying a very short fetch length (thanks to a lack of a supporting ridge) it is expected to hang around for a healthy amount of time, 

This should generate some small long range E’ly swell through Monday and Tuesday, likely to be extremely inconsistent perhaps 2ft or so, maybe 2-3ft at reliable swell magnets if we’re lucky. It ain’t worth working around but if you see some decent lines in the water early next week, this is where it will have originated from. 

Otherwise, synoptically, much of next week looks inherently unstable with a broad trough developing across the coast, freshening local onshore winds but also building local swell potential. It’s too early to pin anything down (the models are in disagreement around the specifics) but confidence is increasing that we’ll see a decent swell generating system in the Tasman Sea next week.