South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 24th August)

Best Days: Later Tues (Mid North Coast) and Wed (North Coast): tricky sideband SE swell with mainly favourable winds. Swell easing Thurs. Later Thurs (Mid North Coast) and Fri (North Coast: small to moderate, long period south swell. Fri/Sat/Sun: small trade swell at exposed beaches, mainly in the Far North and SE Qld regions. Mon/Tues: new SE groundswell for Northern NSW.

Recap: A strong southerly swell across Northern NSW on Saturday and a concurrent E’ly swell in Far Northern NSW and SE Qld provided temporarily good waves under an early NW airstream, before N/NE winds trashed conditions into the afternoon. A smaller but similar pattern then played out on Sunday ahead of tiny leftover surf this morning. 

This week (Aug 25 - 28)

An East Coast Low is forming off the Southern NSW coast, and it’s resulting in a lot of headaches on the forecasting front. As such, confidence is rather low on the specifics for the entire forecast period.

Almost the entirety of this ECL is focussed into Southern NSW, and because the fetch length isn’t especially large we probably won’t see much sideband energy push north into Northern NSW. The Mid North Coast will probably be the biggest beneficiary of this system with an increase later Tuesday and into Wednesday - maybe some 3-4ft+ sets at exposed south facing beaches in the southern region (ie south of Coffs Harbour) - but wave heights are likely to tail off with increasing northerly latitude. 

As a rough estimate, I’m not expecting much more than an inconsistent 2-3ft up in the Ballina region (unlikely to see anything Tuesday, more likely Wednesday) and north of Byron it’ll be even smaller with hardly anything appearing north of the border. 

Tuesday’s looking like a write-off in the Far North (and SE Qld) anyway, with continuing northerly winds and very little swell (mainly a small NE windswell at exposed spots). Winds should improve across the Mid North Coast throughout the day, with a W/NW tendency into the afternoon. Wednesday’s (low confidence) peak in SE swell should be accompanied by light variable winds in most areas.

However, it needs to be pointed out that even with the short range outlook, there are considerable differences between the models as to the precise location of the ECL - it’s quite plausible that these estimates will shift around by tomorrow (in which case I'll update in the notes below). 

The rest of the week doesn’t hold much promise in the surf department. The synoptic charts look nondescript for the coastal margin, so winds should be variable for the most part. Whatever sideband SE swell we see on Wednesday will ease steady from Thursday onwards, and a small distant trade swell should maintain a foot or two of inconsistent surf across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. However no great size is expected. 

A slightly more reliable source of swell is will actually originate from a system travsersing the far Southern Ocean at the moment - an intense polar low well south of the Tasman Sea. It’ll generate a new long period southerly swell that’s due to build across the Mid North Coast during Thursday (probably in the afternoon), reaching the Far North Coast overnight and then easing through Friday. South facing beaches should see inconsistent 3-4ft sets at the height of the activity, and in my eyes this will probably produce some decent waves that are worth working around. However, very little of this energy will make its way north of the border into SE Qld, due to the swell source and direction.

This weekend (Aug 29 - 30)

No major surf is expected this weekend. A developing tropical feature north-east of New Zealand (see chart below) is expected to generate a small trade swell for most regions, but this system is expected to track eastwards, which is not conducive for a significant swell event. A supporting ridge to the south should kick up a small inconsistent east swell but I’m doubtful that we’ll see much above 2ft at exposed beaches over the weekend. 

Otherwise, the remnants of this week’s ECL are expected to slowly drift south, merging with a weak upper system associated with a series of Southern Ocean fronts. This is expected to form a new low pressure system in the Southern Tasman Sea around Friday, displaying several centres - however it’s as yet unclear how much surf each of them will generate. 

Currently, the models are suggesting we’ll see the best surf from this pattern early next week (with a reasonably strong S/SE thru’ SE groundswell for the Northern NSW coast) but prior to this - over the weekend - we are likely to see some short range southerly energy at south swell magnets, from an associated front pushing along the Southern NSW coast.

Due to the complex nature of this system, and the fact that it’s still five days away, we really need a few more days to firm things up. But at this early stage it seems reasonable to suggest that there’ll be some small southerly swell and a small easterly swell around for part of the weekend at least.

Next week (Aug 31 onwards)

As suggested above, the complex system developing in the lower Tasman Sea around Friday should produce a good shot of S/SE thru’ SE swell early in the new week. Current estimates are for a couple of days of waves, with a peak around Monday or Tuesday in the 3-4ft range at south facing beaches - but I’ll have a better estimate on this over the coming days.