Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 18th June)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: large south swell but very windy at times, best suited to SE Qld later Sat and Sun where it'll be smaller but much more manageable. Mon: easing S/SE swell with improving conditions. Tues/Wed: fun small south swell in Northern NSW with good winds (don't expect much in SE Qld). 

Recap: Small leftover surf on Thrusday, easing during the day and becoming tiny for much of today, ahead of a new south swell that’s slowly building across the Mid North Coast this afternoon. Sets to 2-3ft had been observed at the Coffs Harbour surfcam (a good south swell magnet) at the time this report was prepared (4:30pm) but it’s continuing to build and should be considerably larger by sundown (and should also be larger south of Coffs). Winds are gusty from the W/SW.

This weekend (July 19-20)

No major changes to the weekend forecast. However, we’ve now got two distinct pulses of swell on the cards and I reckon Sunday’s going to kick quite a few more goals than Saturday.

The low pressure system currently developing off the southern NSW coast is quite impressive, but in all honesty it’s really generating just a bog-standard sizeable south swell. And the fetch is quite narrow, positioned close to the mainland south of Seal Rocks and fanning out more SW in direction off the Northern NSW coast, which makes me a little skeptical on size prospects for Saturday.

In any case we can all be pretty confident that much of the Northern NSW coast will be a large windy write off on Saturday. Is it worth putting a size on the North Coast? Kinda difficult to have much confidence - especially when most spots will go unsurfed anyway - but you can pick a number between 8-10ft at exposed south facing beaches and 2-3ft inside the most protected southern corner, and fine tune it to your local.

Anyway, only sheltered southern corners will have anything rideable on Saturday, so if you’re in driving distance of the NSW/Qld border I’d recommend a road trip as we’ll see much better conditions in Queensland. Wave heights will be much smaller at most beaches - building to 2-3ft+ across the semi-exposed Gold and Sunny Coast points throughout the day (smaller early morning) but they’ll offer the best conditions under a gusty SW tending S’ly airstream.

The reason I'm more interested in Sunday - specifically the afternoon - is due to the arrival of a second strong pulse of S/SE groundswell, generated by a secondary low pressure system that's expected to develop east of Tasmania tonight, before it tracks through the south-western Tasman Sea on Saturday, working on the active sea state generated by the current front/low combo.

This will help in kicking up a similar size swell as per Saturday, but with a marginally longer swell period, however it’ll still have a lot of south in its direction so expect a wide range in wave heights between exposed beaches and protected corners.

The leading edge of this new swell is not expected to reach the Far North/SE Qld region until late Sunday morning (ahead of a peak in the afternoon), so gut feel tells me that we’ll see a temporary lull in size early on Sunday with fresh SW tending S’ly winds ahead of a great afternoon of small to medium sized points (biggest waves in the 2-3ft+ range; aim for the late session).

It’ll be much, much bigger at south facing beaches - and huge at exposed beaches in Northern NSW - but horribly blown out away from the protected southern corners.

Next week (July 21-25)

No major weather systems are expected to develop within our swell window(s) next week, so the overall trend is downwards from Monday onwards. Fortunately, the Long Wave Trough will have moved slightly further away from the Australian mainland by the start of the week (east of New Zealand) and with a high pressure ridge moving in from the west, we should see lighter SW tending S’ly winds in most regions, maybe becoming variable south of about Coffs.

South facing beaches will continue to pick up the biggest waves - maybe some 4-6ft sets early Monday at south facing beaches in Northern NSW, with 2-3ft sets along the semi-exposed points in SE Qld at dawn - but it’ll drop steadily during the day. Smaller surf is expected through Tuesday with similarly favourable winds. 

A series of fronts skirting the far Southern Ocean below Tasmania/New Zealand early next week are expected to generate some small long period south swell that’ll keep us moving at exposed south facing beaches for the second half of next week. No major size is expected form these sources but with generally light winds on offer there should be some fun waves around.

Longer term (July 26 onwards)

Current model guidance suggests another front will cross the SE corner of the country later next week or early in the weekend, leading to another round of short range south swell sometime Saturday or Sunday. Otherwise there are no other sources of long range swell on the cards.