South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 14th September)

Best Days: Fri/Sat: peaky short range SE swell with good waves at outer SE Qld points, and semi-exposed points in Northern NSW.

Recap: Plenty of fun waves over the weekend and into today. A small trade swell kept SE Qld beaches rideable (biggest on the Sunny Coast), whilst a small long period S’ly groundswell maintained fun waves across the Northern NSW Coast. Early offshore winds at most locations swung S’ly throughout the days, favouring the outer points.

This week (Sep 15 - 18)

I hope you’ve enjoyed the last few days of southerlies, as we’ve got freshening northerlies due on Tuesday.

This will precede a shallow southerly change expected to move up along the Mid North Coast on Wednesday morning, however the latest model guidance indicates it’ll stall around Coffs Harbour or Yamba, leaving the Far North and SE Qld regions under a northerly regime through Wednesday ahead of a weak westerly change early Thursday. 

As for surf, we’re not expecting anything major in the water. Small trade swell is expected to persist throughout SE Qld on Tuesday, although without any major size, and a small intermittent south swell will keep south facing beaches in Northern NSW rideable, originating from a deep low that passed south of Tasmania later Friday and into Saturday. It wasn’t very well aligned for the coast - evident by the small size on offer this morning - but south facing beaches in Southern NSW have seen 2ft sets today and this should continue across Northern NSW for the next few days. 

The southerly change won’t have much schtick behind it either, so don’t expect a mid-week bump in size of any appreciable difference (maybe a few 2ft+ sets at exposed south facing beaches on the Lower Mid North Coast later Wednesday, with smaller surf north of Coffs). 

While all of this is going on, a series of intense lows will have passed through the Southern Ocean, below the Tasman Sea, and they’ll generate some more long range southerly groundswell that’ll fill in underneath the short period energy. This should pad out most of Thursday and Friday with very inconsistent but long lined south swell, somewhere between 2ft and very occasionally 3ft at Northern NSW’s south swell magnets, but much smaller surf will prevail elsewhere due to the swell direction (expect long waits for the sets). 

Of much more interest is a weak trough that’s expected to linger off the North Coast on Thursday in the wake of the shallow westerly change. Model guidance currently has this trough forming a small closed low east of Byron Bay around Friday, driving a strong ridge up into the Coral Sea. Strong S/SE winds feeding into this system should generate a punchy short range swell on Friday that could - depending on how the low evolves - reach a bumpy, messy 4-6ft at swell magnets in Far Northern NSW (north of Yamba, with smaller waves to the south), and even deliver some late afternoon 3ft+ waves to the outer SE Qld points. 

However, if we see any size it will certainly be accompanied with gusty winds so the only rideable options will be at protected locations no matter what coast you're positioned at. Let’s see how things are stacking up on Wednesday. 

This weekend (Sep 19 - 20)

Friday’s coastal system looks like it’ll be a brief affair, weakening through Saturday, which means easing swells and winds from Friday’s late peak. However all signs point to a decent day of waves for the outer SE Qld points, and bigger surf in Northern NSW. The easing trend will then likely continue into Sunday with light variable winds and sea breezes. 

Elsewhere, the final front/low combo in the Southern Ocean this week looks like it’ll deliver another push of long period southerly swell for Northern NSW. No major increase in size is expected (in comparison to Fri/Sat) but it should supply inconsistent 2-3ft+ sets at south facing beaches building during Saturday, easing later Sunday. Winds should be pretty good for much of Saturday south of about Yamba with a weaker pressure gradient but north of Yamba we’ll be susceptible to developing SE winds, following early SW’ers. Sunday should be favourable just about everywhere before the sea breeze. Just keep in mind that wave heights will be much smaller at beaches not open top the south.

The only other possible sources of swell for the weekend are (1) a small SE swell later Sunday from a small low forming off the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island on Friday (low/medium confidence right now) and (2) a small pulse on Sunday from the east, originating from some tropical developments north of New Zealand later this week (medium confidence on the swell, although it's likely to show more strongly Monday than Sunday). I'll have more on the chances of these swells on Wednesday. 

Next week (Sep 21 onwards)

Nothing major standing out in the long term forecast charts, over and above what I just mentioned for the end of the weekend. The tropical source mentioned above looks like it may provide a few days of peaky, inconsistent 2-3ft trade swell from Sunday thru’ Wednesday or thereabouts.

Otherwise, the broader long term synoptic pattern does look rather unstable and this suggests we’ll probably head towards (at some stage within the following week) some more dynamic developments along the East Coast. I realise this is a very broad description, but at the moment there are no synoptic features to align these thoughts with - just a general feeling that the atmosphere is priming itself for a significant weather event in our eastern swell window sometime next week. Let’s see how the charts are faring on Wednesday.