Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 7th May)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: several stages of building S'ly tending S/SE swell, strongest later Thurs, mainly Fri. Won't benefit SE Qld until Fri due to the predominant S'ly direction prior to then. Sat: good S/SE tending SE swell easing, with light winds. Sun: small fun waves with light winds. Next Wed/Thurs/Fri: building trade swell across SE Qld.

Recap: Continuing small surf across the SE Qld region, but with plenty of strong south swell in Northern NSW early Tuesday ahead of an easing trend during the day and into this morning. A new south swell filled into the lower Mid North Coast this afternoon and will build overnight across the North Coast tonight (note: an apparent increase in new swell at the Byron buoy this afternoon is likely to be local windswell rather than new groundswell, as evident by the concurrent drop in significant swell period, as well as the wind switch from a fresh W/SW thru’ SW to a strong S/SW tending S’ly). 

This week (May 8-9)

There's no shortage of south swell for the rest of the week, but fresh and gusty southerly winds will generally confine the best waves to sheltered locations. 

Right now we’re seeing an increase in mainly short range S’ly swell, but some mid-range energy has already reached the Mid North Coast and will fill in across remaining regions overnight, generated by a strong fetch that entered the southern Tasman Sea yesterday.

In addion to this, later tomorrow afternoon a new long period S/SE swell will make landfall across the lower Mid North Coast and this particular pulse is expected to provide the biggest waves of the forecast period.

BUT.. it’s very important to differentiate between all of these swells, because they will all have a different result at the coast.

The initial short range energy really won’t provide much value in the surf zone, because the short period and low strength won’t allow for much refraction into those locations offering shelter from the accompanying southerly wind. Fortunately, this swell will mainly dominate the overnight time frame so it's relatively inconsequential as a whole.

The mid-period energy due through much of Thursday will do a better job, but I’m skeptical that we’ll see much size translation north of the NSW/Qld, again owing to the short swell period and the southerly swell direction. Exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW should pick up some 5-6ft sets on Thursday but they’ll be heavily wind affected. Semi-protected points will be a better option but the swell lines probably won’t be overly well-formed so it’ll be smaller and more sectiony. Southern corners will be very small.

Expect generally small average waves throughout much of SE Qld on Thursday with bigger but wind affected waves at exposed south facing beaches.

The new long period S/SE swell expected to hit the Mid North Coast late Thursday afternoon is looking the best of all. This swell was (and is still being) generated by a small secondary low pressure system located near Macquarie Island on Monday, which merged with the tail end of Tuesday’s front that tracked through the lower Tasman Sea. The combined system has then pushed north through our S/SE swell window. 

Storm force southerly winds developed later yesterday well SE of Tasmania, and because they’ve been working on an already active sea state, we’re looking at the arrival of a very large, powerful swell across the entire NSW coast.

However, I have some concerns around the timing of this swell in Northern NSW. The leading edge of this swell is due into the Port Mac region from early-mid afternoon onwards, and should produce some very big waves about exposed south facing beaches in the 6-8ft range by the end of the day (with smaller 4-6ft waves at remaining open beaches, and smaller surf inside southern corners).

Unforunately, we may not see this swell arriving across the remainder of the North Coast - say, north of Coffs or Yamba - until very late in the day. Which means that we’ll be looking at a twelve hour period under the cover of darkness where this swell will be at maximum capacity across the coastal margin.

There is certainly a chance for an earlier-than-expected arrival but I’d be hedging my bets at locations further south, rather than further north. And the Gold/Sunny Coast certainly won’t be getting a look-in on Thursday.

So, this means Friday is probably going to offer the most value from this S/SE groundswell, with the early morning showing the most size. A slow downwards trend is expected during the day but the morning session should still be somewhere around 6-8ft at exposed south facing beaches across Northern NSW. 

In SE Qld, this swell direction should work a little better than the southerly swells we’ve seen in recent days. Again, there’ll still be a wide range in wave heights between the majority of the coast (2ft+) and exposed south facing beaches (4-5ft) but there should be a much more diverse range of options across the region. Expect some inconsistency here too owing to the swell direction and wide range of periods. 

Winds are looking a little mixed across the region on Friday; generally light and variable across the Mid North Coast, tending moderate to fresh SE across the North Coast and up into SE Qld. However periods of early SW winds are possible, which may create some great waves across the various points and reefs during the morning. 

This weekend (May 10-11)

The weekend forecast has improved a little since Monday’s outlook. We’re looking at a slowly easing S/SE swell all weekend but there’s now more confidence for a little more size on Saturday morning, owing to a short stalling of the Tasman low by the computer models in recent runs. 

This ‘stalling’ is expected to occur early Thursday morning in the south-eastern Tasman Sea, whereby the low briefly re-intensifies around a small secondary centre to the south, giving a slight renewal in new swell energy that’ll probably arrive early Saturday morning.

It won’t so much increase the surf as arrest the easing trend - this should maintain 3-5ft waves across exposed south facing beaches on the North Coast for the early session on Saturday ahead of a drop throughout the afternoon. Smaller 2ft+ surf is expected throughout the Gold and Sunny Coasts early morning, reaching 3-4ft at their south facing beaches. Smaller surf is expected into Sunday. Light variable winds should maintain generally clean conditions all weekend.

Next week (May 12 onwards)

There’s a couple of sources of new swell on the cards for next week. First and foremost, we have a mega swell heading to Tahiti next week (expect footage of 15ft Teahupo'o to appear on the interwebs sometime late next week), of which the primary low responsible for this - well to the S/SE of New Zealand on Friday - is expected to stall and form a small but intense band of storm force SE winds off the ice shelf, aimed at the Australian East Coast.

The small fetch length, short duration and large travel distance will probably restrict wave heights to just a couple of feet at exposed beaches, but if you see some long period (~16 second) from the SE arriving sometime later Tuesday or Wednesday, you’ll know where it came from.

A trough is expected to form off the central/southern NSW Coast early in the week but at this stage it’s expected to be aimed towards the southern half of the state (there’s a chance that the Lower Mid North Coast may pick up some energy, but I’ll reevaluate that on Friday). 

Of more interest to the SE Qld region are the trades south of New Caledonia, which are expected to muscle up early next week as high pressure system in the eastern Tasman builds a narrow ridge across the South Western Pacific. Although no major swell is expected from this source, we are looking at a building E’ly swell from about Wednesday onwards that should deliver some fun peaky waves across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts into the second half of the week and possibly next weekend. I’ll take a closer look at this on Friday.