South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 5th October)

Best Days: Tues: early light winds and a fun S'ly groundswell in Northern NSW (only showing at exposed south swell magnets in SE Qld, generally small in size). Fri/Sat/Sun: fun trade swell for SE Qld; good waves at outer points.

Recap: Plenty of great waves over the Long Weekend. Saturday saw a small E’ly swell across SE Qld, biggest on the Sunshine Coast with sets in the 2-3ft range. Late afternoon, a new S’ly groundswell pushed into the Mid North Coast, reaching the Far North Coast and SE Qld overnight.

This southerly swell ended up being bigger than expected on Sunday, with south facing beaches in Northern NSW peaking around 4ft+, with some exposed northern ends in SE Qld reportedly a similar size range. However, some of the bigger waves reported north of the border - specifically the Sunshine Coast - could have been the byproduct of both the long period S’ly swell and the E’ly trade swell merging together to form wedgey A-frames. I surfed at a reasonably exposed Tweed Coast beach on Sunday with sets around 3ft+, so it’s hard to imagine the same southerly groundswell being bigger across the Gold or Sunshine Coasts. 

This swell had an interesting source: an intense low pressure system that passed south of Tasmania on Thursday, which ultimately displayed a W/SW fetch - aimed well and truly away from our coastline. As such, the actual size seen across the NSW and Qld coasts was incredible given the enormous spread back to the coast that was required. The swell periods were still growing as the swell built along the NSW coast; the Gold Coast buoy ended up recording peak periods of 20 seconds on Saturday night (which is very impressive, and slightly higher than the theoretical periods suggested by the fetch). 

Both this south swell and the weekend’s trade swell have eased in size today with peaky 2ft waves on offer at most open beaches. The Mid North Coast has this afternoon picked up the leading edge of yet another S’ly groundswell, which (as per the weekend’s event) punched slightly above its weight in Southern NSW today. Once again, the source of this swell was a similarly poorly-aligned Southern Ocean low, aimed up into New Zealand and the South Pacific, but with core wind speeds of 50-60kts we’ve seen an amazing level of sideband energy spread back into the coast. This swell should reach the Far North Coast this evening.

This week (Tuesday 6th – Friday 9th)

The new S’ly swell pushing up along the NSW coast today should provide some great waves across south facing beaches in Northern NSW on Tuesday morning before winds ultimately pick up from the north, then north-east during the day. Light NW winds are likely early morning.

Now, the wave model’s poor depiction of the weekend’s southerly swells means I’m not especially confident on the size forecast for Tuesday: I know the model is way off, but by how much? 

Although this swell produced slightly bigger waves than expected across Southern NSW (4ft sets), I’m a little cautious about applying a blanket approach to more northern regions. However I think it’s reasonable to assume that south swell magnets south of Byron will see strong, if somewhat inconsistent 3-4ft sets, with slightly smaller surf across the Tweed Coast and then smaller surf again in SE Qld (exclusive to south swell magnets here as well). In Northern NSW, beaches not directly open to the south will be much smaller.

Most Gold and Sunshine Coast beaches won’t pick up much, if any swell from this source (i.e. inconsistent 1ft sets at best) so you will really have to get yourself to a beaches with a high degree of southerly exposure to make the most of this energy. There won’t be much leftover tradeswell in the water so away from swell magnets surf size will be small and clean through the morning ahead of the sea breeze.

This south swell will then ease slowly through the afternoon and into Wednesday, with freshening N’ly winds ahead of a S’ly change forecast to reach the Mid North Coast late afternoon. 

This change will peter out as it reaches SE Qld but a trailing ridge through the Southern Tasman Sea will reaffirm a broader ridge through the Coral Sea at some point on Thursday. The southerly change itself won’t have much new swell for the region; just a small level of short range S/SE energy for exposed south facing beaches in Nerthern NSW, and very little for SE Qld. The S’ly winds will be welcome though.

This southerly change will be linked in with an intense low passing south of Tasmania in the early hours of Wednesday morning that’ll generate a new long period southerly groundswell for Thursday afternoon (Mid North Coast) and Friday (Far North Coast). At this stage the acute southerly direction will probably limit size to 3ft at south swell magnets in Northern NSW - and not much north of the border - but we’ll evaluate this more closely on Wednesday. 

Otherwise, the broadening ridge through the Southern Coral Sea on Thursday should generate a building trade swell for Friday that’s likely to favour the outer SE Qld points (and Far Northern NSW) with fun surf in the 2-3ft range, and bigger but more wind affected surf at exposed beaches. This is probably the highlight of the week for Queensland surfers thus far.

This weekend (Saturday 10th - Sunday 11th)

With this ridge holding steady throughout the longer term forecast period, SE Qld should see a steady supply of fun trade swell all weekend in the 2-3ft range at the outer points, with bigger surf at exposed beaches - especially the Sunshine Coast, which will be a little closer to the swell source. SE winds will favour the points for the best conditions.

In Northern NSW, aside from the Far North (which should also see plenty of trade swell across the region), Friday’s southerly groundswell is expected to ease into Saturday but it’ll be replaced on Sunday - likely in the afternoon - by a new long period S’ly swell.

This is expected to be generated by an intensifying low pressure system south of Tasmania on Thursday night, which is modelled to briefly push up through our acute south swell window. Current expectations have this swell being better suited to next Monday - especially in the Far North - but with no other groundswell sources for the weekend we’ll assess the timing more closely on Wednesday.

Next week (Monday 12 onwards)

The longer term trend maintains a similar pattern of deep sub tropical lows migrating through the Southern Ocean, providing intermittent southerly swell events to the coastline throughout much of next week. More on this in Wednesday’s update.