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

Best Days: Sat/Sun: plenty of small fun east swell. Building S'ly swell in Northern NSW too. Next week (from Tues afternoon onwards): strong S'ly swell through until the weekend, likely to be very big at exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW. Even some good waves in SE Qld later in the week too.

Recap: Jeez it might not have been big but the last few days have seen pristine beach breaks across many parts of the SE Qld and Northern NSW coast. Crisp offshore winds and a fun east swell hovering in the 3ft range at most locations.. fantastic!

This weekend (May 9 - 10)

No changes to the weekend forecast. We’ve got more east swell on the way, generally from the same region of trades stretching east (and south) of about New Caledonia, which also benefited from a brief intensification at the head of the fetch on Thursday. This should provide around 3ft of surf to most open beaches (a little smaller south of Yamba) on Saturday with wave heights falling back slightly into Sunday. 

In addition to this, we’ve also got  a new south swell combo pushing across the NSW coast, of which Saturday is expected some impressive long period energy (18 seconds) courtesy of a deep polar low that formed well south of Tasmania on Thursday.

South facing beaches in Northern NSW will be the main beneficiary of this energy, as it’ll struggle to generate much size at protected spots, however these locations will enjoy the peaky mix of east and south swells. Exposed beaches should see occasional 3-4ft sets from this source by late Saturday (easing through Sunday) but it’ll be much smaller elsewhere. SE Qld won’t see much southerly swell but with a fun east swell in the water it hardly matters anyway.

As for local conditions, winds are expected to be mainly light to moderate westerly both days, in all areas (they’ll be stronger in the south, particularly on Sunday). So all in all - a great weekend for most open beaches.  

Next week (May 11 onwards)

We’ve got an extended period of south swell on the cards for the coming week, and we’re going to see some sizeable waves across exposed parts of the Northern NSW coast. Unfortunately, this upcoming series of weather systems won’t be very well aligned for SE Qld however the sheer size and scope should allow for some small southerly energy to refract back into the coast north of Byron Bay later in the week.

However, getting the timing of these swells is a little difficult as model guidance is mixed and there’ll be a strong zonal component (west-east) to some parts of the initial pattern, which will reduce size potential from some of the associated fetches.

Just to quickly deviate to our eastern swell window for a moment - in short, we’re not expecting much, if any swell from this quadrant throughout the forecast period. A deep subtropical low south of about Tahiti has been generating some long period E’ly energy, which is expected to make landfall late Tuesday and into Wednesday (Tp of 13-14 seconds!) but it’ll be very small at the coast, perhaps an inconsistent 1-2ft at best.

Otherwise, Monday afternoon is looking to see a minor reinforcement of southerly swell from a front existing eastern Bass Strait later Sunday. This should deliver a pulse back into the 3ft range across Northern NSW’s south facing beaches at some point through the afternoon (more likely in the southern regions than the northern), and winds are expected to remain from the west. Otherwise, wave heights will mainly be small at most open beaches, being residual energy from the weekend. 

A moderate polar low well south of Tasmania will be generating a small south swell during this time - expected to arrive through Tuesday and Wednesday - however a more significant cold front is expected to push through Bass Strait on Monday that should generate a much larger short range S’ly swell for sometime Tuesday, possibly up into the 4-6ft range at exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW (smaller elsewhere). Locations not open to the south will probably see much smaller surf around 2-3ft+, and north of Byron Bay we’ll see only small waves around 1-2ft (bigger at a couple of south swell magnets though).

Following this, an even bigger and stronger front/low combo is modelled to cross Tasmanian longitudes around Tuesday, and the latest model guidance is quite impressive - current GFS data (from the 18Z and 00Z runs) building Wednesday, holding Thursday and into Friday before easing slowly into the weekend - with strong sets upwards of 6-8ft+ across south facing beaches at the height of the event. Yes, that'd be for a couple of days too - this looks to be quite a long lived fetch of southerly gales occupying a reasonably large percentage of the Tasman Sea.

Under this scenario we’d see 4-6ft surf at remaining open beaches in Northern NSW, and even most SE Qld beaches would probably rake in 3ft surf with larger 4-6ft surf at the region’s handful of exposed south facing beaches. 

It’s still early days to get excited, but there is a broad agreement that a pattern of this nature will develop in some way shape or form (and it’s been on the cards for quite a few days now), so it’ll be worth getting ready for some sizeable action out of the south.

What we could see happen though is the entire pattern shunted forward by a day or so - this has already happened since Wednesday's notes - so don't be surprised if things move around a little by the time we get to Monday. See you then for an update.