South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 15th April)

Best Days: Thurs AM: fun clean waves in the morning at exposed south facing beaches. Sat/Sun: fun building trade swell in SE Qld but with tricky winds. Sun AM the pick. Mon: punchy short range S/SE swell, best for semi-exposed points in SE Qld. Tues/Wed: unsure due to a potential developing ECL but it looks like we'll see an infeed of small to moderate E'ly swell.

Recap: Pumping S/SE swell both days, initially 6-8ft+ at south facing beaches in Northern NSW on Tuesday (smaller 3ft waves in SE Qld, reaching 4-5ft at south facing beaches), easing slowly in size today. Perfect conditions for the semi-exposed points. 

This week (Apr 16 - 17)

The surf outlook for the next few days is relatively simple - basically a slow easing trend from the S/SE, with winds around to the northern quadrant south of the border. They’ll be light NW early morning but with a freshening N’ly tending NE tendency during the day, so you’ll be best off making the most of the early session. 

In SE Qld, winds will be lighter and the afternoon flow will be more easterly in direction on Thursday, and north-east into Friday. Again, aim for an early surf at exposed beaches.

South facing beaches in Northern NSW should still see easy 3ft+ sets early Thursday morning (smaller elsewhere), but it’ll be smaller in SE Qld, just a foot or so at most beaches, occasionally 2ft+ at south friendly locations. Expect smaller surf right across the board into Friday - a minor reinforcing S/SE swell is modelled to push up the Northern NSW coast (without affecting SE Qld to a great deal) but no significant size is expected.

Friday afternoon should also herald a small increase in trade swell across SE Qld, with the biggest surf on the Sunshine Coast, due to its closer proximity to the trade belt through the southern Coral Sea. Most of this surf is expected through the weekend but we may see 2-3ft sets here later in the day, with slightly smaller surf across the Gold Coast (2ft+), and smaller surf south of the border. With some luck the afternoon sea breeze won’t affect conditions too much. 

This weekend (Apr 18 - 20)

No changes to the weekend forecast as per Monday’s notes.

SE Qld will see a slowly building trade swell that’s expected to reach a peak on Sunday, following on from a building trend all day Saturday. The Sunshine Coast will again see the biggest waves from this source (3-4ft open beaches at the height of the swell), and it’ll be smaller on the Gold and Tweed Coasts (2-3ft), with incrementally smaller surf as you track south from Byron Bay. Only a small combination of residual S/SE and minor trade swell is expected across the Mid North Coast on Saturday and Sunday.

Unfortunately, local winds are looking a little iffy in most areas this weekend, thanks to the Coral Sea ridge which is expected to push close to the coast on Saturday. This will freshen E/NE winds about most of SE Qld, but winds should veer more northerly across Northern NSW thanks to a cold front approaching the SE corner of the country. 

On Sunday, winds will remain northerly across Northern NSW as the cold front tracks up the Southern NSW coast (reaching the Mid North Coast mid-late afternoon), so surf conditions will probably be patchy at many beaches. However the Coral Sea ridge is expected to weaken so winds should be lighter north of about Byron Bay in the morning. As such, Sunday morning is the pick of the forecast period across SE Qld beaches with plenty of trade swell and a window of clean conditions before we see a freshening nor’easter.

The southerly change trailing Sunday’s late change may kick up a punchy short range swell for locations in the Far South in the few hours before dark, but it’s unlikely to be worth working around as there’ll be a lot of accompanying wind. However I’ll take a closer look at the specifics on Friday.

Next week (Apr 21 onwards)

The models are firming up their expectation that Sunday’s late change will evolve into a deep Tasman Low - or possibly even an East Coast Low - through the first half of the week. There’s been a little to-ing and fro-ing in recent runs but all of the models are in broad agreement that this kind of synoptic pattern will evolve at some point. 

However, this low is now modelled to form a little more to the south (which fits the climatic average), and this may have serious repercussions for locations to its north, especially SE Qld. Essentially, the further south the potential ECL is located, and the closer to the mainland it is positioned, the more SE Qld’s surf potential is greatly reduced from the core of the system. To a lesser degree, Northern NSW can be affected in the same way.

However prior to this ECL developing (any time between late Monday and late Tuesday), we’ll see an initially strong - and sizeable - short range S/SE swell push across all areas. But although there’ll be large waves for exposed spots, the accompanying windy conditions will really only favour the more protected locations - which means heading to SE Qld for the semi-exposed points for the best surf. 

And this will probably be just a brief one-day event on Monday, because as the low winds up, it’ll align and focus its primary fetch towards southern NSW, shutting off the swell supply (and leading to a steady drop through Tuesday)

That being said, we will probably see a healthy NE indeed into the trough extending north of the low, so there is good surf potential from this source (i.e. new sideband E'ly swell into the middle of the week) but compared to southern NSW which could be on track for a very, very large swell event, wave heights will be comparatively small in the Far North. 

Until we get a firm idea on when, where and how this possible ECL will develop, it’s too early to pin down specifics. But the broad outlook favours a shorty range S/SE swell on Monday, easing Tuesday, then supplemented but  a small to medium E/SE swell sometime around Wednesday and maybe Thursday. Let’s see how the model data is looking on Friday.