South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 18th May)

Best Days: Tues/Wed: small beachies in most areas (trade swell in SE Qld, small S'ly swells in Northern NSW). Sat/Sun: fun points in SE Qld.

Recap: A mix of large, but easing S’ly swell over the weekend in Northern NSW, plus some short range SE swell across SE Qld. Wave heights have dropped since late Saturday and we’re back to the small stuff today with mainly light winds across the Northern NSW Coast, and fresh SE winds across SE Qld. 

This week (May 19 - 22)

We’ve got a week of small waves ahead.

The trades through the Coral Sea are slowly weakening so we should see small peaky waves for the next few days, ahead of very small conditions from Thursday into Friday. And as per the last few days, expect radical differences on each phase of the spring tide.

Surf size should manage to hold between 2ft and almost 3ft at exposed beaches (upper end of this size range on the Sunny Coast, smaller on the Gold and Tweed Coasts) and conditions will be best in the mornings with light winds. They’ll veer NW by Wednesday so the open beaches will certainly be your best bet.

Across Northern NSW, south from about Ballina the trade swell will have less influence with increasing southerly latitude, so this coast will be relying on small southerly groundswell, generated by intense low polar lows (and their associated fronts) traversing our far southern swell window. 

The first of these swells seems to have arrived across Southern NSW today (2ft sets south facing beaches) and this should reach Northern NSW on Tuesday. A second pulse of southerly groundswell - a little bigger in size - is due late Tuesday (Lower Mid North Coast) and into Wednesday morning (North Coast), and should provide occasional 2-3ft sets at south swell magnets. However keep in mind that set waves will be very inconsistent, owing to the distant swell source, and it'll be much smaller at beaches not open to the south. Conditions should be clean with mainly light winds.

Thursday looks pretty small just about everywhere, with some interesting developments expected in the Southern Tasman Sea. A cold front is expected to push up the coast overnight Wednesday, forming a small low pressure system offshore during Thursday. Right now the models are split on just how intense this low will be (and when precisely it’ll intensify) - the European solution is deepening it significantly early morning, forming a large Tasman Low with SE gales feeding into most of Southern NSW. 

However my feeling is that the GFS solution is more plausible, with a broad, more slowly developing trough encompassing most of the region on Thursday, and a strong SE fetch on its southern flank slowly moving into our swell window during the day. 

The low is then likely to deepen further into Friday (in the central Tasman) strengthening S/SW winds about the coast at the same time. Right now it’s hard to imagine much of a swell increase before the end of the day, and if it does eventuate it’ll probably be short range junky stuff in Northern NSW anyway, with bugger all in SE Qld. So for now, it’s probably safest to flag Friday for surf purposes but we’ll re-eveluate in more detail on Wednesday. 

This weekend (May 23-24)

This Tasman Low looks like it’s going to deliver a solid but generally wind affected mix of swells across the coast this weekend, all the while pushing gusty S/SE winds at most regions. With open beaches in Northern NSW a write-off on Saturday (5-6ft), only protected points will have anything worthwhile and this particular event doesn’t look like it’ll be consolidated enough for the swell to overcome the local noise. In short, keep your expectations low.

SE Qld will probably be the biggest beneficiary of this swell, even if only because it’ll probably offer the cleanest conditions across the points. Most Gold Coast beaches should pick up 2-3ft waves and it’ll be another couple of feet bigger at south swell magnets - but they’ll be wind affected. Surf size will peak on Saturday and then ease through Sunday as local winds also start to slowly moderate.

Next week (May 25 onwards)

A rebuilding ridge across the Coral Sea early next week should supply a small trade swell to SE Qld throughout the first half of the week, that will otherwise replace the abating S/SE swell from the weekend’s Tasman Low.

Elsewhere in Northern NSW, it looks like we’ve got a long period south swell lining up for early next week, originating from a deep polar low that’s expected to form off the ice shelf on Friday, due south of Tasmania.

Current expectations are that it’ll be much better aimed towards New Zealand and Fiji however we should see some quality sideband energy push through Monday/Tuesday that should provide occasional 3-5ft sets at south facing beaches. I’ll revise this in more detail on Wednesday.