South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 10th October)

Best Days: Tuesday: punchy NE swell (best in Northern NSW south of Byron) with winds swinging offshore at some points. Smaller waves in SE Qld. Wednesday: easing NE and E'ly swells with good winds. Smaller in SE Qld than in Northern NSW.

Recap: Small waves all week with the open beaches across most areas dishing up brief windows of opportunity between onshore winds. Today has seen probably the best conditions of the last few days with mainly light winds region wide, however wave heights have remained small.

This weekend (Oct 11-12)

A very ordinary weekend of waves ahead right across the SE Qld and Northern NSW coasts.

Freshening north-easterly winds will create poor conditions at most spots both days, and without any notable new swell in the water, wave heights will remain very small at exposed beaches. 

A small increase in NE windswell is possible through Sunday as a high pressure system strengthens in the Tasman Sea, but it’ll really only benefit the Lower Mid North Coast (size wise) and the accompanying NE winds will maintain below average conditions.

Next week (Oct 13-17)

First up: our eastern swell window has been teasing us all week with progged tropical developments north of New Zealand due this weekend. Unfortunately, they’re now expected to produce very little surf for the Australian East Coast.

To briefly summarise, the mid-week southerly change spawned a small low in the central/northern Tasman Sea which drifted eastwards and is now located just north of New Zealand’s North Island. 

It’s still expected to merge with some tropical activity south of Fiji, however the primary fetch around the initial low is expected to remain meridionally aligned (north-south), and the secondary developments further east - whilst impressive when viewed as a single snapshot of MSLP or surface winds - are expected to track rapidly east, which will downgrade its swell generating capacity (for us) to almost nothing.

There is a chance that the models (which have been a little erratic in recent days) may slow this eastward movement down over the weekend but I’m really not very confident that we’ll see much, if anything from this source. Also worth noting - the models are suggesting this system will linger in our far eastern swell window all week and could become a renewed swell producer towards the end of the forecast period, but right now it’s too far out to consider seriously.

So, looking elsewhere and a strengthening northerly flow about the greater East Coast through Sunday should generate a NE windswell for Monday and Tuesday. In fact we could see some chunky 3-5ft sets at exposed NE facing beaches in Northern NSW at the height of the swell - probably Tuesday morning - but the key to scoring good surf will be to work around the winds.

SE Qld will also pick up some NE windswell but it’ll be a little smaller in size than in Northern NSW due to the shorter fetch length within the swell window.

At this stage Monday’s upwards trend will be accompanied by strengthening N/NE winds however an advancing southerly change along the southern NSW coast during the day is expected to throw a curveball for Tuesday's surf outlook.

Although the models have been in general agreement that a low will form off the southern NSW coast early next week (in the lee of the change), they’ve been moving the precise location of the low - and its strength and position - quite a bit.

Right now the general consensus is that Tuesday will see a trough push along the Northern NSW coast during the day, with winds swinging from the north to the north-west, ahead of a gusty westerly change later in the day. Northern latitudes will probably see this wind regime occuring later in the day compared to southern latitudes.

Also, we’ll see a concurrent increase in small easterly trade swell across SE Qld and the Far Northern NSW coast. It’ll be smaller in size than the NE windswell but is worth noting because we’re likely to see it persist through much of the week, which should offer plenty of background energy in and around the various swell pulses expected from closer sources.

The development of the low off the southern NSW coast early next week also has tricky surf prospects for locations north of Seal Rocks due to the slight variations we’ve seen in its position over the last few model runs. There’s a reasonable chance that we’ll see a building short range south swell at some point mid-week but right now it’s too far out to have any confidence.

Either way, Wednesday should see moderate westerly winds and an easing combination of NE and E'ly swell, ideal for the open beaches. Surf heights will probably be biggest in the Lower Mid North Coast (early ballpark 3-4ft) with smaller surf in the Far North and also SE Qld.

The second half of the week is likely to be dominated by swell prospects from the Tasman Low (in fact, it could very well end up being an ECL) - but the most likely swell source will be the NE infeed into the low, which may otherwise push too far south to be of any benefit to Northern NSW and SE Qld with any great size (or southerly swell). Small easterly swells will also pad out most open beaches on Thursday and Friday.

All in all, we’ve got a really complex week of waves ahead so let’s take another pass at the data on Monday.

Long term (Oct 18 onwards)

Looks like we’ve got some moderate trade swell for the long term as our far eastern swell window falls under the influence of a broad, slow moving high pressure system. It’s unlikely to be an epic swell generating system but should nevertheless supply plenty of surfable options through the long term period, in addition to anything else that may form in the Tasman Sea. More on this in Monday’s notes.