South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Forecast by Ben Matson (issued 6am Tuesday 31st March)

Best Days: Wed/Thurs: fun waves across semi-exposed points in SE Qld and Northern NSW, easing Fri onwards. Sat: brief pulse of S'ly swell at selected south swell magnets in Northern NSW. Next week: lots of potential with a new low forming off the coast.

Recap: Small swells limited the weekend’s options in SE Qld, and poor winds dominated the Far Northern NSW coast. Morning winds were light and variable for the remainder of the North Coast (south from about Evans Head), and a small but otherwise nondescript south swell provided fun options across open south facing beaches. Sunday afternoon remained fun at northern corners as winds veered to the northern quadrant. Smaller swells padded out Monday with winds continuing from the north.

This week (Apr 1 - 3)

Finally, we’ve got some good waves ahead for SE Qld. The trades began a rebuilding phase yesterday (Monday) and will continue through today, before holding through Wednesday and then easing on Thursday. In actual fact, the latest model guidance has marginally strengthened and broadened the fetch since Friday's update, so we’ll probably see a few bigger waves than were estimated in those forecast notes.

As per usual under these southern Coral Sea trade scenarios, the Sunshine Coast will see the biggest waves (4ft+ open beaches, smaller points) with surf size decreasing slowly as you track south across the Gold Coast (3-4ft), North Coast (3ft+) and Mid North Coast (2-3ft). As the swell direction will be straight east, surf size should be only slightly smaller across the semi-exposed points of SE Qld and Northern NSW (however, protected points will be much smaller).

This peak in size is due throughout Wednesday and Thursday, however the trades are forecast to weaken around Thursday which will lead to a drop in size into Easter Friday and Saturday. However, they will still remain active - albeit further east of New Caledonian longitudes - so we’re only expecting a slow drop in size into the first part of the holiday break.

As for local conditions, the synoptic wind will be moderate to sometimes fresh easterly all week (weakening through Thurs/Fri as the trades pull back) and this will certainly cause some problems at times. However we should see isolated areas of light variable/offshore winds early morning - not everywhere, but at a few selected locations (southern Gold Coast, parts of Northern NSW and most likely the Mid North Coast).

This weekend (Apr 4 - 5)

The weakening of the trades around Thursday will cause surf size to ease into the Easter period, but fortunately there should still be plenty of size for the start of the weekend. Saturday morning should hold out around 3ft+ across the Sunshine Coast (open beaches, smaller on the points) with 2-3ft surf on the Goldy and Far Northern NSW coast and 2ft+ surf south from about Yamba. Surf size will fall slowly throughout the day.

Also in the water on Saturday will be a fresh southerly groundswell, generated by a cut-off low expected to form east of Tasmania on Thursday. This system is expected to initially hug the coast and will therefore be tucked up right inside Northern NSW’s acute south swell window, which means many locations could miss out on swell from this source.

Thanks to very strong core wind speeds (and an initial stationary position), the swell periods should be quite strong, so some south facing beaches could pick up 3-5ft of surf from this source - but I fear it’ll be restricted to a handful of super reliable swell magnets: in general this swell will probably sail right on past the coast, offering much, much smaller waves at most beaches (and nothing in SE Qld). However, tied in with the pre-existing trade swell could mean some really fun peaky beach break combos.

As for Sunday - we’ll see a slow easing in both trade swell across all coasts, and also Saturday’s flukey south swell easing across exposed swell magnets in Northern NSW. 

Local winds are looking a little tricky this weekend thanks to a developing trough along the North Coast, extending down to about the Hunter Coast, which may initially freshen E’ly winds through Saturday afternoon before a return southerly flow develops on Sunday as a new surface low forms off the coast (possibly an ECL, more likely a Tasman Low). At this stage these freshening E'ly winds - or the developing low itself - are not expected to be a source of new swell until about Monday but I’ll fine tune this in Wednesday’s update. 

Next week (Apr 6 onwards)

This developing low looks like it’ll be slow moving for a period, so therefore has the potential to generate a large swell event for some parts of the East Coast. At this stage, the southern NSW coast is probably more likely destination - being a NE swell from a strong infeed from the tropics, however as the low winds up we’ll see a strong E/SE tending SE then S’ly swell develop through the first half of next week.

Also, an initially developing S/SW fetch parallel to the Northern NSW coast on Sunday may generate some short range S’ly energy for exposed parts of SE Qld on Monday. It’s a tricky situation to dial in at long range (or even short range for that matter) but with the accompanying local S’ly winds, conditions will be well suited to some small runners about the semi-exposed points.

Otherwise, all eyes will be on this Tasman Low and what it’ll produce for the first half of next week - I’m not particularly confident that we’ll see anything significant in SE Qld however Northern NSW could very well be on target for a strong pulse of quality, sizeable surf during this time frame. More on this tomorrow.