South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 19th August)

Best Days: Difficult winds right across the period. But we're expecting a strong building S'ly swell Fri, easing Sat. And a building E'ly swell in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW during the same time (easing Sun). Could be windows of opportunity though.

Recap: We’ve seen a decent S’ly swell across exposed parts of the Northern NSW coast from late Tuesday through much of today, and conditions have been generally OK with light winds. Surf size was much smaller in SE Qld due to the swell direction but exposed south facing beaches picked up some fun waves. 

This week (Aug 20 - 21)

The forecast is actually a little more complex for the next few days, but ultimately the chances of finding a good remains tricky due to the local wind field. However, we have had an upgrade in east swell for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW for the end of the week, which is certainly a bonus for this time of the year.

First things first: the current southerly swell will ease through Thursday, ahead of a new, strong southerly groundswell arriving Friday that’s expected to peak late in the day across the Mid North Coast. This swell probably won’t peak across the Far North Coast and SE Qld region until early Saturday, so expect an upwards trend across all regions all day (just delayed in the north).  Wave heights should reach 4-5ft at south facing beaches at the height of the swell, with smaller surf elsewhere, especially in SE Qld.

Thursday’s easing S’ly swell will be accompanied by an early light variable breeze (probably offshore) that’ll swing E’ly in the north and NE in the south throughout the afternoon, creating bumpy conditions. On Friday we’ll see these winds strengthen - they’ll be NE across the Mid North Coast, but more E’ly tending E/NE in SE Qld, thanks to a strengthening ridge through the lower Coral Sea. This certainly has the chance to ruin conditions at a great number of locations so keep your expectations low.

The only benefits of this strengthening ridge is that the models have intensified it in recent runs, and its close proximity to the coast means we should see a decent peaky short range swell. Wave heights will be largest across the Sunshine Coast (owing to its closer position to the fetch), where open beaches should see building surf from later Thursday reaching 3-4ft on Friday afternoon. Due to the E’ly thru’ E/NE swell direction, even the points should see a reasonable percentage of size (let’s hope the wind doesn’t get too strong here). 

The Gold Coast should see slightly smaller surf in the 3ft range from this source, and then south of the border wave heights will ease with increasing southerly latitude. It’s a real shame that local winds look difficult though, as this swell combo would otherwise produce some fun waves. So, keep an eye on the local wind obs and pounce if you see anything under 12kts. 

This weekend (Aug 22 - 23)

They don’t call it a devil wind for nothing. Saturday looks like seeing an excellent combination of swells across most coasts - solid long period southerly energy, plus a punchy short range E/NE swell that should produce really fun waves at open beaches. But with moderate N/NE winds modelled across the region it could be difficult to find anywhere offering worthwhile conditions.

South facing beaches in Northern NSW should see some early 4-5ft bombs from the south on Saturday (easing during the day) and the E/NE swell should hold around 3-4ft across the Sunny Coast, and 3ft on the Goldy for much of the day (with smaller surf south of the border). Smaller surf is expected from both sources on Sunday.

However, there is certainly some hope away from the computer generated forecasts. A developing surface trough over the inland region has the potential to influence the wind regime along the coastal strip, so despite model guidance estimating 12-15kts of NE winds Saturday tending N’ly on Sunday (even stronger south of Yamba), we may see pockets of lighter even variable winds at times. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to have any confidence on when or where this might happen, but if you had to hedge your bets I’d be aiming for the northern regions (i.e. north of the border), preferably sometime during the mornings. 

I’ll see how the data is looking on Friday as to whether there’s any more confidence for this to occur, but for now it’s certainly worth pencilling in a surf as there won’t be any shortage of waves - all we need is an improvement in the wind outlook. 

Next week (Aug 24 onwards)

We’ve got an interesting pattern developing on the synoptic charts for next week. First of all, a ridge will hold across the South Pacific (north and north-east of New Zealand) into the longer term which supply a small intermittent east swell for some time mid-late next week and into the following weekend. 

Locally, as the inland trough moves east into the start of next week, the northerly flow will strength across the coast through Monday and Tuesday. This should generate a peaky windswell but we’ll need the local winds to cooperate for there to be any worthwhile action in the surf zone.

However, of much greater interest is a broad E/SE fetch developing off the Southern NSW coast early next week. Whilst current model guidance suggests this will mainly be aimed at points south of our region, such patterns are unreliable at long range and its presence in the model guidance suggests an unstable synoptic regime which certainly has the potential to swing in our favour with future updates. At this stage I’m more inclined to think Southern NSW (and Tasmania’s East Coast) will be the biggest beneficiary of this system, however I will be watching developments very closely.

Otherwise, the long range charts also have a couple of deep Southern Ocean lows expected to push through our far southern swell window later in the forecast period, but this is fairly standard for this time of year so we don’t need to evaluate any more closely than this for a few days yet. More on all of the above on Friday. 

How's the sand at the Superbank...

Still some lines at Moffats this afternoon