Sydney Surf Pro, North Narrabeen
May 9th - 16th

Coming hot off a pumping finale to the Gold Coast Pro, the CT hopefuls head south, rolling into North Narrabeen for the Sydney Surf Pro.

The waiting period kicks off this Thursday and runs through until the following Thursday, and in short there’ll be no lack of swell, it’s just the state of the sand and local winds that will dictate conditions.

Sydney’s been under a stationary pattern of wet weather and south to south-east winds this past fortnight. Localised flooding and strong onshore winds have made a mess of the bank at North Narrabeen, with the Trials and Pro Junior over the weekend offering up heavy, straight waves instead of the longer running bowls.

It is worth noting this was under a dominant southerly groundswell - which is never ideal at North Narra - and with the swell shifting more to the east in the coming week we’ll hopefully see the bank become more settled and groomed as the contest progresses.

Contest directors will be hoping for similar conditions to that seen in 2021 (Brokensha)

Looking at the swell outlook, and later this week the stubborn ridge of high pressure responsible for the run of average surf and weather will start to move east. The result will be those south-easterly winds tipping more easterly, and even north-easterly.

It's worth noting that no period of sustained offshore is due between now and the waiting period so the sea surface will be jumbled after a period of extended onshores - there'll be no shortage of brown water and detritus either.

Thursday - the first day of the waiting period - will see a mix of small, long range southerly swell and shorter period easterly swell. The day will start with 2-3 feet of east swell (more noticeable than the south swell) building to 4 feet into the afternoon. A morning southwest land breeze will give way to an easterly sea breeze late morning.

Friday will see the swell temporarily drop back to 2-3 feet out of the south and the east with similar conditions expected. Both Thursday and Friday will have their moments but it'll be far from classic Narra.

On Saturday the background south swell will get a top up as a new pulse arrives, coming in around 4 foot on the sets, and at the same time the easterly energy will start to kick back in, reaching 3-4 feet into the afternoon. 

Saturday is also when a low pressure trough looks to deepen into a low and this should enhance the infeed of east to east-northeast winds, though where the axis of the low sits will determine if we see groomed, offshore conditions or large, onshore surf.

At this early stage it looks like we could see a mix of both with Sunday coming in clean early in the day, ahead of strong onshore winds and large surf into early next week.

Also, whether the organisers choose to run during the early days will largely depend on conditions next week - i.e can they afford to wait. It's a very dynamic outlook, typical of the East Coast under troughy conditions, so we'll have to keep a close eye on the developments of this system over the coming days.

16-Day Northern Beaches Forecast Graph
16-Day Northern Beaches WAMs