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

Best Days: Tues: low confidence on a small/mod SE swell with early light offshore winds. Wed: solid S'ly swell in Northern NSW, with generally favourable winds. Only small in SE Qld. Thurs: easing S'ly swell with early light winds. Fri/Sat: N'ly winds will generally ruin a strong long period southerly swell, but the Sunny Coast (and at a pinch, the Gold Coast) may see periods of favourably light NW winds, and smaller surf. 

Recap: The weekend generally panned out as expected with a series of fun southerly swell providing nice waves across Northern NSW (beaches in the mornings, semi-exposed points in the afternoons), but surf size was very small in SE Qld away from the south swell magnets. Wave heights tapered off slowly from the south today, but a new SE swell was detected at the Crowdy Head buoy mid-afternoon, with peak swell periods increasing to 15 seconds (this swell has yet to reach the Byron or SE Qld buoys).

This week (Aug 18 - 21)

The new SE swell that’s filling into the coast right now originated from a small cutoff low that formed off the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island on Saturday. It’ll show best at south facing beaches south of Byron Bay on Tuesday morning, and will probably trend downwards during the day. However, as mentioned in Friday’s notes, experience has shown that these swells are often hit and miss at many locations (and very inconsistent too), so keep your expectations low - it's certainly not worth any major road time.

As for size, exposed south facing beaches south of Byron could see anywhere between 3ft and (very occasionally) 5ft of swell early morning but for the most part I’m expecting smaller surf, especially at beaches not open to the south. The swell’s origin and orientation isn’t great for SE Qld, so most open beaches here are probably looking at infrequent 1-2ft sets, with bigger 2-3ft waves at south swell magnets. So just to reiterate: confidence is not high for this swell event so I wouldn’t recommend any serious mileage until you’ve sussed the surfcams and dawn reports.

As for local winds - Tuesday look favourable for the morning with an early light W/SW flow in most areas (outside chance for a brief NW flow across the SE Qld region at dawn), but it’ll swing moderate SW then S’ly during the day in association with the passage of a front. 

Also in the mix later Tuesday will be a building S’ly swell that will probably only impact the Mid Noth Coast up to about Coffs or maybe Yamba by the end of the day. This new south swell is being generated by a deep low and vigorous front that entered the southern Tasman Sea this morning (and will also trigger Tuesday’s wind change). Strong S/SW winds pushing up into our south swell window have been well aligned for the last 24 hours, and we’re looking at a pretty solid swell event by Wednesday, probably somewhere in the 3-5ft range at south facing beaches in Northern NSW. Conditions are looking pretty good on Wednesday, with mainly light variable winds and sea breezes across most of Northern NSW.

In SE Qld, this new S’ly swell is unlikely to arrive until Wednesday morning or perhaps even later, and even then we’re not looking at much size across the coast, just 1-1.5ft at most beaches with a few 2-3ft sets at south swell magnets. A ridge will firm up against the coast during the day so early light winds here will probably swing S/SE throughout the afternoon, confining the only rideable waves to the outer points (and they’ll be small). 

The rest of the week is scheduled to be affected by northerly quadrant winds. In fact, we’ve got a prolonged period of northerlies on the cars for quite some time - perhaps all the way through until the early to middle part of next week (there’s a hint: make the most of the next few days!).

Thursday will see early light winds and slowly easing south swell from Wednesday that should manage a few 3-4ft sets at south facing beaches (in Northern NSW) early morning, before easing during the day. Expect very small surf north of the border, and it’ll become quite bumpy once the wind kicks in from the N or NE. 

On Friday, a strong new southerly groundswell is expected to provide strong waves to finish the week - but unfortunately it’s going to be ruined by the local winds. This swell will have originated from a broad, intense polar low moving slowly well below the continent (just off the ice shelf) and is expected to reach maturity on Wednesday morning directly south of the Tasman Sea. This should produce strong waves in the 4-5ft range at south facing beaches in Northern NSW by the afternoon (may be undersized early), and even some small 2ft waves across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. But with these winds options will be several limited.

The only other sources of new swell to finish the week (not that it matter with such a poor wind outlook) is a small trade swell from the ridge building through the southern Coral Sea from Wednesday (i.e. small peaky E’ly swell later Thurs/Fri in SE Qld). But nothing to write home about.

This weekend (Aug 22 - 23)

Northerly winds really look like they’re going to spoil the upcoming weekend of waves.

We’ll see Friday’s strong southerly swell persist through Saturday morning before easing slowly across the weekend, and there’s also a chance for some small local NE windswell in the mix - but unless you’ve got a reliable north-wind-friendly location, there won’t be much action going down.

We may also see some small trade swell across SE Qld thanks to a moderate ridge through the Coral Sea but no major size is expected from this source. 

If there were a positive to glean from the current forecast, it is that wind strengths should be lighter with increasing northerly latitude. That is - the Sunshine Coast is probably best positioned anywhere across the region to see the lightest winds. And, they may be NW for periods in the mornings. But all in all it won’t be worth too many kilometres this weekend.

Next week (Aug 24 onwards)

Nothing major on the cards for next week. Another cut-off low is expected to form west of Bass Strait over the weekend which suggests a continuation of northerly thru’ north-westerly winds early in the week across our region (with a small easing S’ly swell, and just some small local N'ly windswell).

As this system eventually clears to the east into the Tasman Sea early-mid week, we’ll probably see a return southerly swell build along the coast later in the week - but that’s still quite some time away and will require further evaluation over the coming days. 

A broad but generally unfavourably aligned ridge through the Coral Sea and SW Pacific may also contribute some small trade swell to the region but at this stage no major size is expected.

‘Till Wednesday…