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

Best Days: Most days should have waves although nothing fantastic is expected. 

Recap: Plenty of fun peaky trade swell across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW for the last few days, generally in the 2-3ft range although inconsistent and pulsey at times. Very small conditions were prevalent across remaining Northern NSW beaches both days, with southern regions seeing an increase in new south swell this afternoon. Winds were light and variable Tuesday but freshening W/SW winds swung S/SE across SE Qld just before noon today, with Byron recording a swing from the S/SW to the SE around 4pm this afternoon. Fresh SW to S’ly winds have otherwise dominated the remaining Northern NSW coast today, following a period of early light W’ly winds. 

This week (June 11 - 12)

No major change from our eastern swell window for Thursday. The small trade swell that’s occupied our region this week should maintain slow inconsistent sets between 2ft and occasionally 3ft at swell magnets in Far Northern NSW and SE Qld. However, freshening SE winds in conjunction with a holding ridge through the Coral Sea will limit the only surfable options to the  semi-exposed points, which will be a little smaller. So, it doesn’t look especially promising.

Northern NSW will see a building S’ly swell on Thursday from an active frontal progression across the lower Tasman Sea over the last few days, but local SE winds will render exposed locations quite bumpy. Exposed spots should reach 4ft+ by the afternoon (smaller earlier) but you’ll have to tuck into a sheltered locations for smaller, cleaner waves (very little trade swell is expected south of about Yamba). 

On Friday, local winds should ease in all area but it’ll still maintain some degree of SE in its direction throughout the day, following on from a brief window of SW winds in some locations early morning. 

Surf possibilities are a little tricky to pin down for Friday though. Thursday’s S’ly swell is expected to hold into Friday morning across Northern NSW, with early 3-4ft+ sets at south facing beaches like to ease a little during the day. However, we’re looking at smaller surf at beaches not open to the south.

In Far Northern NSW and SE Qld, the swell models are picking up the arrival of a significant E’ly swell from a tropical depression that developed NE of New Zealand on Tuesday. Our Gold Coast data point has 2.3m of E’ly swell at 8.2 seconds around noon, which is forecast to hold through Saturday.

However, I can’t quite see this eventuating. Satellite wind observations weren’t especially promising, and I think the swell models are significantly overcooking this event - I suspect that there’s some contamination in the swell data, with the model combining short period E/SE swell from the building Coral Sea ridge in with a smaller component of the longer period E’ly swell from the South Pacific depression.

As such, I’m going to scale back my expectations for Friday (and beyond) from our eastern swell window to an inconsistent 2ft to maybe (if we’re lucky) 3ft across this region (may even be a little smaller early morning). With moderate to fresh SE winds - lighter SW early - I think we’re looking at a small, average day of waves across the semi-exposed points. I hope to be proven wrong but I really just can’t see where the models are picking up this strong east swell from. Let’s wait and see what happens.

This weekend (June 13 - 14)

According the models, Saturday is expecting to see a strong east swell across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. But without wanting to repeat myself (see above), I think the models are overcooking this and we’re looking at a small mix of long range and short range east swell somewhere north of 2ft but less than 3ft across the region on Saturday, easing into Sunday.

Otherwise, Northern NSW is looking at a new southerly swell building across the coast during Saturday, originating from a strong cold front passing east of Tasmania on Thursday. Exposed south swell magnets should see occasional 3-4ft waves by the afternoon (smaller early morning, especially in the Far North) and unfortunately we won’t see much of this swell refract in north of Cape Byron. So expect smaller surf from this source north of the border, but also at beaches north open to the south (in Northern NSW). This swell will also ease through Sunday. 

As for local winds, we’re looking at light variable winds both days, with just a lingering SE flow through Saturday across SE Qld (light SW early though). So, open beaches should have good options across most areas both days. Saturday will have the most size though, from both the east and south swells. 

Next week (June 15 onwards)

The front and low responsible for Saturday’s pulse is expected to undergo a further re-intensification, well to the south of New Zealand on Friday (see chart below). As this happens, a fetch of storm force S’ly winds are expected to wrap around the primary low, and should kick up a new long period S/SE swell that’s currently modelled to arrive across the Mid North Coast mid-late afternoon on Monday.

Prior to the arrival of the new swell (Monday morning), we’re looking at smaller residual southerly and easterly energy across much of Northern NSW. The expected new pulse of S/SE groundswell should however bring some strong sets to exposed regions throughout the afternoon, possibly in the 3-4ft range, holding into Tuesday morning too. However I am doubtful that we’ll see this new swell arrive in the Far North before close of business Monday, so Tuesday may be the only time to capitalise on it.

At the same time, it looks like the middle of next week will see a series of smaller S/SE swells originating from trailing fronts skirting the far eastern waters of the Tasman Sea, right along the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. 

The other main feature for the longer term is a deepening trough across the eastern states from late Tuesday through Wednesday which should strengthening NE winds about the coast. This may kick up a peaky local swell for open beaches, however surface conditions will probably be quite average at first with the accompanying nor’east airstream. What we’ll be looking for during this period is the timing for the trough to move offshore and local winds to swing around to the west, just as the swell starts to decline. At this stage it’ll probably occur somewhere around Thursday but I’ll take a closer look at this in Friday's notes. Locations further south (i.e Mid North Coast) will have the most size potential from this system.

There are also a series of strong depressions models to form in our eastern swell window (near and far) throughout the long term period but the broader model consensus is that they’ll each track steadily eastward shortly after forming, which significant reduces their surf potential. As such, I’m not particularly in favour of any major east swell events for the region until such time that the long wave pattern slows down and allows one of the systems to form properly over a period of days rather than a period of hours. Let’s take a closer look in Friday’s update to see if things have swung more in our favour.