South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 17th July)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: small clean waves at sheltered spots. Don't expect a lot of size in SE Qld. Mon: light winds and a strong south swell in Northern NSW. Small combo of S'ly and SE swells in SE Qld. Tues onwards: building trade swell across the coast, nothing but fun for the open beaches.

Recap: Thursday and Friday have seen small to moderate pulses of southerly swell, favouring the Northern NSW coast with good waves, and delivering tiny surf to SE Qld. Winds have been mainly offshore although quite gusty at times today in response to a developing low off the Southern NSW coast.

This weekend (July 18 - 19)

No changes to the weekend forecast. The low developing off the Southern NSW coast will briefly display southerly gales in our swell window overnight tonight, but otherwise it’ll be a relatively short-lived swell generating system for our region. 

Instead, a cold front pushing through the southern Tasman Sea this afternoon will contribute a greater amount of size to the region. In fact, the size estimations from this system have been increased since Wednesday's outlook, thanks to the models strengthening the front in recent runs. 

So, Saturday will see two swells but the morning is likely to be smaller than the afternoon. In fact, Sunday is shaping up to deliver the biggest waves overall, as there’ll be a third, stronger swell source building across the region. 

But back to Saturday for a moment: local conditions will generally suffer under the effects of a fresh to strong S/SW tending S’ly breeze. We’ll probably see early pockets of SW winds early morning, but this will mainly be across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld and surf size will be much smaller small here to begin with.

As such, the semi-exposed points north of the border and other protected locations south of the border will offer the best waves, and mainly after lunch. Expect 6ft+ surf across south facing beaches in Northern NSW by the afternoon with 4-5ft surf at remaining beaches, however SE Qld will be very small - just a foot of inconsistent surf early morning, building to 1-2ft+ through the afternoon. The semi-exposed points may see a few bigger sets, and south swell magnets will be bigger again, but quite wind affected.

On Sunday, the third swell source should contribute strong southerly groundswell to the region. This will have originated from a series of deep polar lows that have been making their way off the ice shelf and through our far southern swell window for the last few days. South facing beaches in Northern NSW should hold steady in the 5-6ft range for most of the day, with a chance for bigger bombs at reliable swell magnets (note: there may be a lag on this next pulse in the Far North early morning; the most size is expected here in the afternoon). 

Wave heights will be smaller at most open beaches (3-5ft) but they’ll your best options as once again local winds will cause a few problems in the morning. The overall southerly airstream will abate but there’ll be a lingering flow in many regions, and pockets of SW winds early (which won’t be enough to iron out the lumpiness). However a gradual improvement is expected throughout the day.

Across SE Qld, surf size will be much smaller on Sunday (1-2ft+ most beaches, slightly bigger at semi-exposed points and bigger again at south facing beaches) however a building ridge across the coast will freshen a S’ly tending SE flow. Winds should however be light SW in a few areas early morning - such as the southern Gold Coast - but on the whole it’s best to keep your size and conditions expectations low. And as per the caveat for the Far North Coast, there may be a lag on the arrival of this third south swell, so the early morning may be slightly undersized from the figures above.

Next week (July 20 onwards)

Monday looks pretty good on the whole, with Sunday’s strong southerly swell expected to hold steady before easing slowly through the afternoon and then through Tuesday. South facing beaches in Northern NSW should still manage 5-6ft sets at times, with smaller surf elsewhere, and surface conditions should be generally good with light variable winds. It won’t be perfect (thanks to an absence of a synoptic offshore) but it’ll certainly be an improvement from the weekend. 

In SE Qld, the region will see a mix of small refracted southerly groundswell and building trade swell on Monday, the latter of which should favour the Sunshine Coast with peaky 2-3ft sets (a little smaller on the Gold Coast). We’ll still see a light to moderate SE flow about the region but winds should be variable early morning.

On Tuesday, a moderate ridge is expected to develop across the Northern Tasman Sea in response to a slow eastward migrating high pressure system, and this should generate some useful trade swell for the region throughout the remainder of the week. It won’t be very large nor very strong, but most regions should see 2-3ft of peaky surf through Wednesday and Thursday, with the swell direction slowly trending anticlockwise (initially E/SE tending E’ly in Northern NSW, and E’ly tending E/NE across SE Qld). 

Local NE winds are expected to become quite gusty later in the week and there’s some potential for a decent kick in local swell around Friday, but I’ll have a look at that in more detail on Monday.

Otherwise, the only other new source of swell for next week is a minor southerly groundswell later Wednesday and early Thursday for exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW, generated by an intense polar low that’s modelled to form off the ice shelf over the weekend. Unfortunately, the latest model guidance has slightly skewed the storm track slightly away from our swell window, which pulls back projected wave heights a little, however we should see some very inconsistent 2-3ft sets across exposed south facing beaches. However, I wouldn’t consider it to be a reliable source of new swell (and the inconsistency will be at the extreme end of the scale), so it’ll be best to focus on the other swell sources in the outlook. 

‘Till next week, have a great weekend.