Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 2nd August)

Best Days: Strong southerly swell for the next four or five days. Plenty of good options with generally light winds. 

Recap: Thursday delivered 4-5ft+ S’ly swell early morning before wave heights eased throughout the day. Winds were light so conditions were clean. This morning saw surf size bottom out around the 3ft mark at south facing beaches, but a new long period S/SE swell is starting to push into the region, generated by an incredibly intense storm that pushed through the lower Tasman Sea yesterday. South facing beaches are already 4ft+ and a few more feet is expected late in the day. 

New lines showing across the Manly stretch

This weekend (August 3 - 4)

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The timing of the current swell seems to be running behind schedule, but far out - what an incredible weather system it’s been sourced from (see below). It is a real shame that this low wasn’t aimed properly in our swell window, as it’s probably the strongest mid-latitude system I have seen in the Tasman Sea for many, many years (to be honest, I can’t recall a stronger one offhand).

Anyway, the swell from this low will peak overnight and we’re looking at easing size through Saturday.

Of course, Saturday’s early size will depend on just how big it gets overnight - and confidence is not high, because of the fetch’s poor alignment, and the rapid speed at which it moved perpendicularly through our swell window - but I’ll stick with south facing beaches seeing a few stray 4-6ft sets before wave heights ease to about 3ft by lunchtime.

Because of the position of the source winds and the way in which this system developed, we're more likely to see the upper end of the predicted size range across the Hunter region than locations south from Sydney (and, Northern NSW will probably see even larger waves). Light variable winds will keep things clean all day. For what it’s worth, I am concerned that the swell will peak rapidly and trend down earlier than expected (i.e. before dawn) but either way your best size prospects will be earlier rather than later.

Sunday’s new long period southerly swell has unfortunately been downgraded since Wednesday’s notes. In fact so has the whole sequence for early next week.

The size and progression of the developing weather system hasn’t changed much, but model guidance now has a weaker fetch. Worse, it’s tilted the alignment slightly more SW-NE than before (a little more outside out swell window). This means the swell energy will have to do more work to bend back into the NSW coast and we’ll suffer a further size loss as a result. Model guidance still has swell periods boosting to 17.5 seconds after lunch, so this is a good sign.

Nevertheless, conditions will be generally clean with mainly light winds - there’s a risk of a moderate southerly from a passing front affecting a few regions, but I don’t think it’ll cause too many problems - and we’ll see wave heights rebuild into the afternoon from an early low point around 2-3ft at south facing beaches. In fact, most of the size increase will fill in across Monday, but late Sunday should see some 4-5ft, maybe 4-6ft sets at south facing beaches on dark, wth bigger waves across the Hunter though smaller at all beaches with less southerly exposure. 

Next week (August 5 onwards)

So, we’re still looking at a prolonged spell of elevated swells out of the south early next week - just a little smaller in size than previously suggested, though not by much. Monday and Tuesday should both maintain 4-6ft surf at most south facing beaches, and a brief pulse embedded within (either very late Monday or early Tuesday) should push north of 6ft at times. 

A very slow easing trend will then kick in from early Wednesday (still 4-5ft south facing beaches early), and smaller background south swell will pad out the rest of the week.

Conditions look great Monday thru’ Wednesday with light winds under a weak high pressure ridge, but passing fronts to the south Thursday and Friday will freshen the westerly airstream and smooth things right out. 

A quick front south of Tasmania mid-week may generate a small pulse of new S’ly swell for the end of the week, but current indications are that it’ll be very poorly aligned within our swell window. 

Longer term maintains a strong westerly frontal sequence across the SE corner of the country (including a polar outbreak with very cold conditions) and this is likely to maintain fresh offshore winds for a few days. As this broader LWT passage pushes into Bass Strait by the end of next weekend or early in the following week, our southerly swell window should fire up again with strong short range energy for Southern NSW.

Have a great weekend!