South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 18th September)

Best Days: Sat/Sun/Mon: Fun small waves on the SE Qld points. Bigger in Northern NSW but wind affected at times. Tues: window of cleaner conditions and smaller swells. Wed onwards: large S'ly swells, with possibly some E/SE energy in the mix too later in the week, but very windy. Likely to be best suited to the protected points. 

Recap: Not much surf on offer Thursday, but today we’ve seen gusty southerly winds and a building S/SE swell across the coast. It’s been a slow grower this afternoon, but the SE Qld points are now 2ft (see below) and getting a little bigger with each hour - but not much more than 2-3ft is expected though. Exposed beaches are bigger, and south of the border there’s a lot more size but with very little quality away from sheltered southen corners, owing to the wind.

The Superbank, 5:30pm Friday

This weekend (Sep 19 - 20)

On the balance, there’s no major chances to the weekend forecast. Synoptically there are few differences, but they’ll actually have more of an influence on next week’s surf prospects (I’ll detail their ramifications below). 

In essence we’ve got a typical summer pattern with a strong ridge through the Coral Sea all weekend expected to drive fresh SE winds across Southern Queensland and Far Northern NSW. These winds will also maintain plenty of trade swell, but the only surfable waves will be at the sheltered points. 

Size wise we’re looking at 2-3ft across the Gold Coast both days, with slightly bigger waves on the Sunshine Coast, and exposed northern ends will see larger surf, albeit much more wind affected. 

There’s an outside chance for a period of moderate S/SW winds early morning across some regions - probably just Coolangatta - but other than that it’ll really be a weekend best suited to the outer points. 

As a side note, the GFS model currently has a small retrograding low within the trough line immediately east of SE Qld on Sunday which may kick up a late increase across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. It’s only been a recent development in the latest model runs (and, at less than 48 hours out needs to be monitored closely) as future updates could strengthen this - its close proximity to the mainland means it can have a dramatic effect on wave heights if it ends up exceeding model guidance. I’ll update on these thoughts in the comments below over the weekend. 

South of about Ballina over the weekend, surf size will ease slowly from the short range SE source, however it’ll be supplemented by some small long range southerly groundswell (nothing major, 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches) plus an additional short range SE swell extending from a second ridge through the Central Tasman Sea, linked to a developing low off the SW tip of New Zealand’s North Island.

This should maintain 2-3ft sets at most open beaches both days but with similar winds on hand - moderate to fresh SE tending E’ly, and just an outside chance of an early S/SW flow - conditions won’t be too great.

So, aim for the points this weekend and don’t expect any great size. Bring the crowd repellant too.

Next week (Sep 21 onwards)

We’ve got a few changes to the long range outlook for next week.

First of all, Monday is still looking at a fresh SE groundswell originating from a low that’s developing off the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island today. Although not a major swell generating system, it’s still expected to develop a pretty good sized fetch and should kick up 3ft sets throughout the day across Northern NSW (there may be a slight lag on this swell early morning). Smaller surf is expected from this source in SE Qld.

However, as mentioned above, Sunday’s potential 'retrograding low within the trough line' could very well kick up a brief pulse of bigger E/SE swell for SE Qld on Monday morning (3-4ft) before levelling out to a standard residual size through the day and into Tuesday (2ft, maybe 2-3ft). See the caveat above regarding wave heights.. I’ll update over the weekend as these systems often produce excellent windows of opportunity for the points. 

Monday’s winds will probably remain some form of SE in SE Qld although again, lighter SW winds are possible early. South of about Ballina or Yamba we should be into more of a light variable tending NE flow as a new front approaches from the south.

Unfortunately, the great E/SE swell we’ve been expecting for Tuesday and Wednesday has been almost completely wiped off the charts.

It was forecast to be generated by the same low pressure system (mentioned above for Monday’s swell) as it moved northwards over the weekend, merging with another trough/low that formed well east off the Byron Coast today.

Unfortunately, the Byron low has decided to remain where it is (which is a good thing, as it’ll ensure waves for the next three days in SE Qld), however the NZ low is now forecast to move slowly eastwards - over land. So, the landmass of New Zealand will now bisect this system in two, and also rearrange its alignment so that there’s very little fetch aimed in our swell window.

It’s amazing what small aberrations in model data can result in - and unfortunately in this case it’s a non-event for our expected mid-week swell. Nevertheless Tuesday will still see a peaky mix of swells from the SE, with small runners on the SE Qld points and bigger surf south of the border, with light variable winds ahead of a late S’ly change in the south. Definitely a better day that you’d expected at this time of the year. 

In any case, we still have a dynamic week of waves on the way for the middle to latter part of the week. A gusty S’ly change is expected to push up the Southern NSW coast on Tuesday, linked in with a broad, strong frontal passage stretching all the way down to polar latitudes.

A blocking pattern upstream - in fact, the same low we were initially hoping for our Tues/Wed swell is now expected to re-intensify east of New Zealand - will then stall the west-east migration of weather systems in our region, and allow this next pattern to develop considerably across the western Tasman Sea. 

At this stage it’s too early to pin down specifics, as we’re looking at quite a comprehensive, long lasting feature to reside in our swell window. But the upshot of it is that we’re going to see a lot of south swell building from Wednesday onwards, and there’s a chance for an embedded low pressure system or two in the mix that could really supercharge things and allow very large swells to develop (later in the week). 

Where these large swells are primarily aimed remains to be seen, but it’s fair to expect that wave heights will be significantly smaller in SE Qld due to the dominant swell direction (that certainly doesn’t rule out the possibility of great waves north of the border though).

So for now, let’s just assume it’s a one way street from Wednesday - building southerly swells that is - but with fresh and gusty accompanying southerly winds. By Thursday or Friday, we could be looking at an additionally large E/SE swell depending on how a (modelled) low forms off the coast, but there certainly won’t be any shortage of size - I’d be surprised if it didn’t reach at least 8ft somewhere in Northern NSW by the week’s end, maybe even more (but much smaller in SE Qld). Early indications would certainly point towards a reasonable chance of some great waves on the Queensland points. And next weekend should see plenty of surf too although we’ll likely be on the downwards phase of this event by then.

Have a great weekend.. see you Monday!