South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 24th April)

Best Days: Sat thru’ Tues: slowly building E'ly swell, peaking around Tues. Mon/Tues: building south swell (in Northern NSW) but wind affected at exposed beaches (fun mix of swells at protected spots). Wed: easing E'ly and E'ly swell with better conditions. Thurs/Fri (and beyond): possibly punchy, sizeable E/NE swell.

Recap: Easing S/SE swell on Thursday with a building E’ly swell today. Although 2-3ft was expected in SE Qld from the east this afternoon, the swell seemed to arrive a little earlier than expected and there’ve been a few reports of slightly bigger waves at swell magnets (although, I haven’t seen a great deal of size across our surfcams despite spending a lot of time watching ‘em!). Nice conditions all round with light winds. 

This weekend (Apr 25 - 26)

Looking like a good weekend of waves right across most coasts. We're looking at steady offshore winds from the west thru’ north-west on Saturday, before tending west-northwest on Sunday ahead of a fresh south-west trend into the afternoon. Perfect for the beach breaks.

As for surf, the only source of swell is the previously discussed E’ly groundswell (building today) that originated from a broad tropical system NE of New Zealand earlier this week. Although wind speeds were quite strong and the fetch length was considerable, I am worried that the significant travel distance will peg back wave heights at the coast. 

Nevertheless, without any evidence to the contrary, I’m going to stay firm with Wednesday’s expectations: holding somewhere around 3ft for Saturday, possibly a little bigger on Sunday. But there will be very long breaks between sets due to the distant source of the swell.

All in all, it should be an ideal weekend for some tidy beachies right along the Northern NSW and SE Qld coasts. However, the expected wind regime and the infrequent, slow nature of the swell probably won't lend itself to much activity across the semi-exposed points. So spread yourself out and get into some A-frames.

Next week (Apr 27 onwards)

The tropical system NE of New Zealand is performing really well at the moment and it’s going to generate a stronger E/SE swell for the first half of next week (with swell periods up into the 12-13 second range).

However, this development has happened as the fetch slipped south into the (partial) swell shadow of New Zealand’s North Island - which means we’ll see wave heights taper off in size, south from about Ballina (or thereabouts). And, with the large travel distance I am worried whether we'll see a great deal of size at the coast - our computer generated wave model is certainly undercalling this event. If nothing else, there will be very long breaks between set waves.

This incoming swell is expected peak on Tuesday but we’ll see a steady upwards trend throughout Monday. The biggest waves will be on the Gold and Sunshine Coasts (3-4ft+) from this source, however despite the smaller easterly component across Northern NSW, there’ll also be a strong south swell in the water from a developing Tasman Low (on Sunday night).

In fact, this development is expected to drive fresh and gusty (across the Mid North Coast) southerly winds across the region; it’ll be a little lighter north of the border but the take home message here is that these winds will push the best waves to semi-exposed points.

Size wise in Northern NSW, exposed south facing beaches may see windy 4-5ft waves from the south swell but they’ll combine with the (smaller) east swell at protected beachies to create some fun peaky options. Both swells will then ease from Wednesday onwards but conditions should be quite manageable mid-week with much lighter winds. 

As for the long term outlook, we’ve got a strengthening ridge across the Northern Tasman Sea later next week and a developing coastal (and secondary inland) trough along the East Coast that has potential to prime the atmosphere for a significant weather (and swell) event sometime around next weekend. As a bare minimum, SE Qld is looking at a punchy - and possibly sizeable - E/NE swell from about Thursday onwards, but this is still some time away and will require close scrutiny over the coming days. More on this in Monday’s update.