South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 12th August)

Best Days: Late Thurs/Fri: fun mix of south swells in Northern NSW, with generally good conditions (only small in SE Qld). Sat/Sun: fun clean south swell(s) with OK conditions, best in the mornings. Small in SE Qld. Late Mon/Tues: chance for a small funky SE swell, biggest in Northern NSW but should be some good waves in SE Qld too. Tues thru' Fri and beyond: series of southerly swells. 

Recap: Monday’s south swell eased very slowly through Tuesday and we’ve even seen a few lingering sets persist into today across exposed beaches of the Mid North and North Coasts. Today also saw strengthening N’ly winds off the SE Qld coast that has generated a peaky NE windswell for the region. Set waves were in the 3ft range at exposed spots late this afternoon, and a north-west tending westerly change hit around 5pm which tried to briefly clean up conditions just on dark (see photo below, from the Tweed Coast around that time).

This week (August 13 - 14)

Unfortunately, this local windswell for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW isn’t going to hang around for very long. 

The westerly change pushing through now will essentially steer the swell-generating fetch well and truly away from the coast - not that it was favourably aligned to begin with anyway - and with twelve hours of darkness already setting in, the overnight easing trend will probably leave weave heights very small by Thursday morning, even at swell magnets. 

It’s possible that there’ll be a few leftover sets in the 1-1.5ft range at dawn, but they’ll probably disappear completely by mid-morning. Winds will be offshore though so conditions should be clean.

Otherwise, Thursday is looking at a building southerly swell from a south-west fetch that’s expected to develop off the Southern NSW coast early in the day. Right now, winds are straight westerly in the lee of the change, and because this is perpendicular to our coastline, there’s pretty much no chance we’ll see any surf at the coast from its current phase.

The building trend should start to kick in across the Mid North Coast from about late morning though, and build towards a late afternoon peak before holding steady for much of Friday. We may not see the upwards trend kick in across locations north of Yamba until mid-late afternoon, so expect small residual swells for the first half of the day here, and in SE Qld.

As for wave heights, the southerly swell direction will restrict the biggest waves to south facing beaches but we should see anywhere between 3ft and occasionally 5ft at swell magnets (more likely Friday morning, than any other time, perhaps very late Thursday south of Coffs if we’re lucky). Thursday’s winds will swing from the W to the SW, and it’ll be gusty in the south but there’ll be options about the coast. On Friday, we’re looking at light variable winds for the most part under a weak ridge of high pressure.

SE Qld won’t see much size from this southerly swell, due to the low period and poor alignment, but south swell magnets should still pick up some good waves on Friday thanks to the light winds. Most Gold and Sunshine Coast beaches will probably hold around 1-1.5ft but the outer points should see infrequent 2ft+ sets and south swell magnets should be bigger near 3ft+ at times. But on the balance, it’s probably worth keeping your size expectations low north of the border for Friday. 

This weekend (Aug 15 - 16)

There’s still nothing major on the cards for the weekend at this stage, however we should see OK waves both days across Northern NSW’s open beaches.

Friday’s south swell will ease slowly into Saturday and early offshore winds should maintain clean conditions at most beaches, with sets in the 3ft+ range at south facing beaches. It’ll be smaller elsewhere due to the swell direction. 

A weak front is expected to clip the coast during the afternoon, probably swinging winds around to a moderate to fresh southerly after lunch, so if you’re aiming to surf on Saturday make it early. 

In SE Qld, we’re looking at smaller surf with similar winds - so aim for the open swell magnets. Most Gold and Sunshine Coast beaches will be very small (1ft+ but well exposed beaches should have clean 2ft+ sets before the wind swings. 

On Sunday, we’re looking at a continuation of mixed southerly swell, including a small new pulse originating from a fetch trailing Saturday’s change. Wave heights will probably motor along in the same range as per Saturday, the only drama is that the models are maintaining a weak ridge across the coast which means we will probably see some form of southerly or south-easterly breeze develop. However, winds should be W/SW across most locations early. I’ll fine tune the details more closely on Friday. 

Next week (Aug 17 onwards)

The weak front expected to push into the lower Tasman Sea on Saturday is now modelled to form a new low off the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island on Sunday, and although it’s not expected to be aimed perfectly for the NSW coast, it should generate some decent sideband energy for the first half of next week. 

It’s too early to have confidence in this as a priority swell event but early indications are for late Monday or Tuesday to see clean 4-5ft sets at south facing beaches, with even the SE Qld region pulling in 2ft to almost 3ft sets (this scenario plays a little better for northern locations due to the fetch’s eastern position, which allows the swell energy to spread more efficiently into the coast north of Byron).  

Elsewhere, the middle part of next week (Tues thru’ Thurs) is expecting to see varying degrees of southerly swell, originating from several sources - a couple of distant, broad polar lows skirting the Southern Ocean, and a close range frontal passage through the lower Tasman Sea around Tuesday. At this stage there’s still not much confidence on how much size we’ll see so I’ll update the figures on Friday. 

Beyond this, a similar pattern is expected to maintain plenty of long period southerly swell for Northern NSW through the end of next week and next weekend. More on this in Friday’s update.