South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 9th October)

Best Days: Southeast Qld: Sat/early Sun: fun trade swell on the outer points. Thurs/Fri: new trade swell building across the region. Northern NSW: Sat/Sun in the Far North as per SE Qld (early morning for the best waves), otherwise south swell magnets should see an easing S'ly swell Sat AM, and a small new S'ly swell building later Sun. Late Mon/Tues: could be a window of light winds with a new S'ly groundswell.

Recap: Wasn’t much surf of value on Thursday. As expected, Wednesday’s southerly change was too narrow and directional to favour SE Qld, and south of the border was a mess of sloppy windswell. However later in the day we started to see a building trade swell and it’s kicked well and truly into gear today with the SE Qld outer points providing solid 3-4ft sets under a fresh SE wind. Conditions aren’t perfect but those locations that can handle the wind and aren’t too protected (i.e. Snapper-Kirra) are seeing great waves. However, protected points (such as Noosa) don’t seem to be performing very well, this is most likely due to the initial low periods associated with the early stages of this building swell. Northern NSW is also seeing some building S’ly groundswell in the mix today, originating from an intense low that tracked eastwards south of Tasmania a few days ago. This is producing clean 3ft sets at northern ends that are offering shelter from a freshening NE breezes (Coffs Harbour, Port Macquarie). 

Strong lines at Snapper

There's a bomb!

Small peelers First Point Noosa

New S'ly groundswell building at Coffs Harbour

This weekend (Saturday 10th - Sunday 11th)

No changes to the forecast for the weekend. 

Southeast Qld: With the ridge holding steady overnight then weakening through the weekend, we’ll see a continuation of this south-easterly airstream through Saturday, with a chance for an early period of SW winds at dawn at a few selected locations (mainly Coolangatta). 

The trade swell should continue along as it current is with sets in the 3ft+ range across the Gold Coast on Saturday, and slightly bigger surf on the Sunshine Coast owing to its closer proximity to the (swell generating) ridge.

However with these short range trade swells, the surf trend usually trails the ridge by a day or so. As such, wave heights will slowly ease into Sunday - although set waves may still be 3ft+ early morning, slightly bigger on the Sunny Coast, before it starts to abate. 

With a much weaker ridge across the coast on Sunday, we’ll probably see a longer period of light morning winds (across a broader range of the coast too) but this also means we’re likely to see afternoon NE breezes. So surf early on Sunday for the biggest and best waves as this trade swell slowly eases.

Northern NSW: The Far North Coast down to about Ballina should see a similar size and trend in trade swell this weekend, as per the Gold Coast. However, locations south of here will see diminishing size from this source.

Today’s southerly groundswell will also ease across the Mid North Coast throughout Saturday, but should linger across there North and Far North Coasts throughout the morning before easing into the afternoon (sets to 3ft at south facing beaches).

As for winds on Saturday, the further south of the border you travel, the lighter the wind strengths will be and the more they’ll freshen from the NE in the afternoon. That being said, north of Ballina we’re probably looking at early light SW winds tending E’ly during the day, at moderate strength. 

On Sunday, the diminishing trade swell will be accompanied by a fresh pulse of S’ly groundswell that should provide very inconsistent 3ft sets to south facing beaches throughout the day (note: there may be an early morning lag on this south swell in the Far North).

This swell will have originated from yet another intense low passing through the Southern Ocean south of Tasmania, so it’ll be very inconsistent and directional, only favouring south-facing beaches. But with freshening N’ly winds - that could become quite gusty through the afternoon - most other locations will probably become blown out, so look for as much protection as you can find. 

Next week (Monday 12 onwards)

There’s still nothing major in the long term outlook right now, but we have a couple of features to keep a close eye on.

Northern NSW: A series of migrating mid-latitude lows in the Southern Ocean will continue to provide intermittent pulses of south swell all week, favouring south facing beaches in Northern NSW and that’s about it. The first is due later Monday and will ease throughout Tuesday, another is then expected around Thursday with a third on Friday. There's a chance for some very inconsistent 3ft+ sets at south swell magnets, but expect considerably smaller surf at beaches not completely open to the south.

Monday’s winds will remain out of the northern quadrant (low/mod chance of early NW winds) but an approaching trough should provide a southerly change to the Mid North Coast early Tuesday. However I’m not sure if it’ll have enough strength to reach the Far North Coast.

Either way it doesn’t look like being much of a swell generating system: its most notable feature is that it’ll disrupt the synoptic northerly, so the time frame later Monday or early Tuesday could see periods of light variable winds that’ll be worth capitalising on. 

Tuesday’s trough is however forecast to linger through the Northern Tasman Sea throughout the rest of the week and there’s a chance it’ll merge with another system later in the forecast period and produce some strong short range swell. There’s no concrete evidence for this right now - just a hunch - but with the long term charts not showing much right now, this is certainly worth keeping an eye on.

Southeast Qld: The weakening ridge across the Coral Sea this weekend is expected to contract to the north, just outside of our swell window, for a few days early next week. This means we're looking at smaller residual trade swells through the first half of the week.

However long range modelling has it shifting south again around Wednesday and restrengthening through the lower Coral Sea, which should build tradeswell across the coast from Thursday onwards - initially not quite as much size as what we’ve seen today, but maybe some 2-3ft sets across the region. We may see bigger surf next weekend from this source though.

Otherwise, the aforementioned southerly swells (for Northern NSW) should provide exposed south swell magnets with a few small waves later Monday and early Tuesday. Just bear in mind that northerlies will create problems at times. 

Also, I’ll be keeping the trough in the Northern Tasman Sea under close watch during the middle of next week to see if that has potential for our region later next week and into the following weekend. 

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!

Superbank on fire this afternoon