South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 18th August)

Best Days: Tues: small beachies in Northern NSW with offshore winds in the morning (not much in SE Qld). Wed: building S'ly swell but windy (only small in SE Qld, but clean on the points). Thurs/Fri: improving conditions in the south (still some wind in the north) with an easing S'ly swell and a small, building SE swell. Sun onwards: building E'ly swell that could be sizeable early-mid next week.

Recap: A strong, long period southerly groundswell occupied the region on Saturday, easing into Sunday morning. A short range NE swell built into Sunday, and although winds were NE then N’ly in the hours before dawn, a westerly change arrived early and conditions improved steadily, with excellent waves reported from mid-late morning onwards right across the entire region. The swell direction swung more E/NE into today and wave heights have tapered off very quickly. 

This week (Aug 19-22)

The weekend’s complex trough of low pressure over the western Tasman formed an East Coast Low off southern NSW overnight, with several small low pressure centres that are delivering rain, wind and large surf to the locations south of Seal Rocks.

However, now that the trough has pushed quite some distance offshore, the weekend’s swell source has dried right up so our swell prospects will hinge around developments to the south. 

Right now, the low is positioned close to the coast and most of its fetch is mainly aimed towards Sydney and points south. This situation will exacerbate overnight - meaning, our swell window will actaully become even less active than it is now - ahead of a solid southerly push along the NSW coast throughout Tuesday.

As such, we’re looking at tiny surf in SE Qld on Tuesday with fresh westerly winds, and a mix of mainly small residual S’ly and SE swell along the Northern NSW coast, biggest south of about Coffs (with 3ft+ sets at south facing beaches, smaller elsewhere) generated by today's developing activity. The North Coast should see some fun beach breaks at exposed spots but it’s unlikely to be worth a day off work.

A strong to gale force S/SW tending S’ly change is expected to reach the Mid North Coast mid-morning Tuesday, and the North Coast mid-afternoon, and we’ll see a rapid increase in windy short range south swell in its wake (although only at south facing beaches, which’ll be very choppy). Most of the initial size increase will be confined to the Mid North Coast, having been generated by a thin fetch located right along the coast. 

Wednesday looks like a safer bet to make use of this building short range southerly swell. Although, a small low embedded in the change is likely to maintain southerly winds at strength across northern locations through the day.

Coupled in with this will be a reasonably strong increase in straight southerly swell (6ft+ at exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW), of which there’ll be a high loss of size at beaches not open to the south, and even more so in SE Qld where the semi-exposed Gold and Sunshine Coast points may see occasional sets of 2ft+. However these spots will be the only real option under the gusty southerly. 

Semi-exposed points on the North Coast should also be worthwhile but I am a little concerned about the lack of decent swell period, and the acute southerly swell direction, which may result in comparatively small waves at these spots (say, 3ft+ sets).

During Thursday, local winds will really start to ease in Northern NSW but the SE Qld (and probably the Far North Coast) will see continuing moderate to fresh SE winds as a ridge builds across the southern Qld coast. The southerly swell will ease steadily, to be replaced in the afternoon by a fresh pulse of new SE swell, generated by a secondary fetch developing west of New Zealand on Tuesday.

There won’t be a great deal of size from this source (say, 3-4ft set at open beaches in Northern NSW, 2ft+ in SE Qld), but there should be something worthwhile on offer. This swell will then ease slowly through Friday with local winds expected to also ease in strength. So, once again the beachies should be worth your attention.

This weekend (Aug 23-24)

The overall weekend trend looks small but fun with light winds in the south as a weak ridge of high pressure settles across Victorian longitudes and spreading out into the Tasman Sea, and moderate trades (!) in the north as an easterly flow sets up camp across the northern Tasman.

There’s a couple of areas of possible new swell, albeit without a great deal of size: to begin with, a small southerly fetch off the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island on Thursday may deliver some small refracted SE swell later Saturday and into Sunday. 

Of more interest is  the top of the Tasman high, which is expected to interact with a broad but ultimately weak trough slowly pushing down from the southern Coral Sea, which should strengthen a minor east flow in our swell window. This is modelled to slowly build a short range east swell over the second half of the weekend and further into early next week. This will probably be best suited (size wise) to SE Qld, with Sunday afternoon likely to see occasional 2-3ft+ sets (smaller surf south of about Yamba). I’ll take a closer look at the specifics on Wednesday.

Longer term (Aug 25 onwards)

The outlook is pretty good for the longer term, with the Northern Tasman Sea expected to slowly strengthen an unseasonal easterly fetch south of New Caledonia. This should result in a reasonably long-lived easterly swell that could become quite sizeable across the SE Qld and Far North Coasts early-mid next week. Let’s take a closer look on Wednesday.