South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 3rd June)

Best Days: Thurs: excellent, strong S/SE swell in Northern NSW with great winds. Smaller but still very good in SE Qld. Fri: easing S/SE swell but with good winds. Sat/Sun: fun, pulsing S/SE swell across the Mid North Coast. Sun thru' Wed: small trade swell across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld, winds best suited to the points. May see brief spike late Sun/early Mon. Wed/Thurs: building south swell, could be solid Thurs in Northern NSW.

Recap: Strong southerly swell has dominated the last few days but as per usual, there’s been an enormous size difference between exposed North Coast beaches and the SE Qld region. Conditions have been generally favourable most mornings with early W/SW winds ahead of a developing southerly each day from mid-late morning onwards. South facing beaches in Northern NSW have seen sets in the 6ft range but most Gold and Sunshine Coast beaches have peaked at about 2ft (with bigger waves at south swell magnets).

This week (June 4 - 5)

The Tasman Low responsible for our current swell event will deliver one final push of excellent surf, and it’s due to arrive over the coming hours - the southern NSW buoy network is recording an increase in swell periods and this also includes Crowdy Head (which is good news!).

As such we should see the new swell in the water across most Northern NSW regions early Thursday, but it may still be delayed across SE Qld for a few hours (model guidance actually has the swell kicking in north of the border mid-late morning).

This pulse will originate from developments that occured Monday evening - a secondary low pressure centre developed just off New Zealand’s West Coast, merged with the broad parent low (responsible for the current swell), and strengthened S’ly winds to storm force strength across a considerable area. As this fetch was working on an already active sea state, and because the fetch tracked northwest then north as it ‘slingshot’ itself around the primary low, we’re going to see another strong pulse of secondary swell fill into the entire East Coast.

South facing beaches in Northern NSW should see strong sets between 6ft and 8ft range throughout Thursday, with smaller waves at beaches with less southerly exposure. The slightly more eastern position of this fetch - compared to the fetch responsible for yesterday’s and today’s waves - means that we’ll see a little more SE in the swell direction, which should therefore allow for a greater spread of size across the coast. Conditions should be clean with light variable winds, mainly offshore.

Across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, Thursday's wave heights will still be heavily attenuated due to the swell direction but we should see a little more size than today. Keeping in mind that the early morning may be slightly undersized, and based on today’s observations of 2ft sets, we should see surf size pushing an inconsistent 2-3ft+ at the semi-exposed points by the afternoon, with considerably bigger waves at exposed south swell magnets (4-5ft+). Again, light winds here will also create clean conditions.

Surf size will then gradually trend downwards through Friday but there should still be strong sets early morning (say, 4-6ft at south facing beaches in Northern NSW, with slow, inconsistent 2ft+ across semi-exposed points in SE Qld). Local winds are looking good with a freshening offshore breeze as a developing surface trough off the coast reacts to an upper cold pool positioned to the west. Either way there should be plenty of great waves to finish the working week but expect a slow drop in size throughout the day.

This weekend (June 6 - 7)

The developing surface trough during Friday is expected to influence a reasonable swathe of the Northern NSW and SE Qld region over the weekend. Early Saturday will see freshening SW winds tending S’ly then SE throughout the day in most regions, a little lighter in the Far South. 

However there won’t be quite enough oomph in the fetch to generate any notable swell at first - it’ll mainly exert its influence by spoiling a pre-existing long range S/SE swell, originating from an active polar frontal passage from the ice shelf into southern New Zealand (from today thru’ Friday morning). This source is expected to provide 3ft+ waves to south facing beaches in Northern NSW, and smaller surf elsewhere.  

We may see some small local SE swell build later Saturday and into Sunday but SE Qld will be the biggest beneficiary of this (maybe some 2ft sets across semi-exposed points). As it is, winds won’t be great for the open beaches - which may be a little bigger - so the points will be your only real option.

As the trough moves eastwards into Sunday, local winds south of about Yamba should become light in strength so the second half off the weekend looks reasonably good across most open beaches - the further south you are, the better conditions will be. SW tending SE winds across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld will maintain the best waves to the semi-exposed points again.

It’s also worth pointing out that the models also currently have a brief intensification of the southern flank of the trough overnight Saturday (see chart below), which could bring about a further pulse of slightly bigger E/SE swell (centered mainly around SE Qld) late Sunday or early Monday with 3ft+ sets. But given this development wasn’t really on the charts a few days ago, let’s wait until Friday to see how things are looking.

Next week (June 8 onwards)

We have plenty of swell sources for next week. The weekend’s troughy system will slowly slip to the north and lose strength early next week, but we’re looking at fluctuating moderate trades across our E/NE swell window which should keep Far Northern NSW and SE Qld flush with 2-3ft of peaky east swell through the first half of the week (at least). There won't be much size form this source south of about Yamba though.

Elsewhere, we have some interesting south swell on the cards, courtesy of a powerful series of fronts crossing the Tasmania region from Sunday onwards. Initially, the storm track will be too zonal (west-east) to allow for any notable size, so Monday and Tuesday will see a mix of easing residual energy across Northern NSW. 

A small pulse is then due into the Southern NSW overnight Tuesday that should produce 2-3ft waves at south facing beaches in Northern NSW at some point on Wednesday (early morning in the south, afternoon in the north). 

However a much stronger system trailing behind later Monday is then expected to provide a bigger secondary swell for Thursday that could reach 4-5ft+ at south facing beaches in Northern NSW. More on this in Friday’s update.