South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 28th December)

Best Days: Great waves most days, though Tues/Wed/Thurs will see a lot of south in the swell direction (not great for protected SE Qld locations) and it'll be windy too. From Fri onwards we're looking at series of strong E'ly groundswells with lighter winds, prob peaking Sat and then again the following Tues. 

Recap: Easing SE swells over the weekend produced small surf throughout SE Qld, and larger waves with increasing southerly latitude. A gusty southerly change pushed up the Northern NSW coast on Sunday afternoon, arriving some 3-4 hours behind expectations. Today we’ve seen building S/SE swells with windy conditions; the southern Gold Coast points are a steady 3ft now and may become a little bigger later today.

This week (December 29th - January 1st)

Lots to get excited about in these notes... read on!

Right now a strong ridge lies over much of the region, with a strong S/SE fetch trailing behind. This ridge will be our primary swell source for the next few days, being short range S/SE swell that’ll mainly favour the outer points of SE Qld due to the accompanying gusty S/SE winds.

Fortunately, this pattern will remain almost stationary so no discernible trend is expected in the local conditions until about Friday.

Throughout Tuesday and early Wednesday, surf size should hold similar to what we’re seeing today, which is generally around 3ft at outer SE Qld points (bigger at south swell magnets, but very wind affected) and smaller surf inside inner points due to the strong southerly component in the swell direction. 

South of the border there’ll be more size at south facing beaches (4-5ft) but local winds will create terrible conditions away from the protected spots (which will be much smaller). So the semi-exposed points will offer the best waves across the region. South of Ballina, wave heights will start to tail off, so there’ll probably be fewer options initially because of the shorter fetch length. However protected southern corners should have small clean options. 

A reinforcing pulse from the S/SE is expected later Wednesday and into Thursday, originating from a new low forming along the trough line in the SE Tasman Sea today. It’s expected to meander throughout the southern Tasman for a day or so, before tracking northwards. This system won’t be perfectly aligned for our region, but as its fetch will be working on an already active sea state, it will take less effort to kick up a decent groundswell - of which there’ll be plenty of surf prior to its arrival anyway. 

This should kick up an extra foot or so across most regions, though the prevailing S/SE direction will continue to limit options across heavily sheltered locations in SE Qld. Exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW should see 5-6ft sets at the height of the swell, but in reality you’ll be somewhere smaller that’ll offer protection from the wind. 

Outer SE Qld points should reach 3-4ft around this time and given the synoptic setup the southern Gold Coast points will continue to be the pick of the region. This particular swell event will then slowly ease throughout Thursday afternoon.

But, it doesn’t end here.

While all of this is going on, some much more substantial developments will have been occurring in our far eastern swell window. As I’ve been discussing for the last couple of weeks, we have an active monsoon pattern across the top end (though it hasn’t spawned a Tropical Cyclone in the Gulf of Carperntaria, as has been expected). Additionally, a second region of vigorous north-west monsoons are moving eastward across the tropical waters north of Fiji (broadly between PNG and about the Cook Islands). 

The latest model guidance suggests a developing blocking pattern upstream, which is in turn expected to instigate an enormous low pressure gyre across the Tropical South-western Pacific Ocean. That is, a clockwise conveyer belt of storm activity tracking east through the equatorial regions, then south down towards New Zealand, then back west towards the Australian mainland before turning north into the Coral Sea.

And the implications of this is an increasing probability for a fantastic, sizeable and long lived easterly groundswell right across the East Coast for the longer term period.

At the moment Friday looks like it’ll be the transition point between the easing S/SE swell (previously discussed above) and the first push of fresh easterly swell. Additionally, the coastal ridge looks like it’ll start to ease by this time, which should allow for localised periods of light SW winds in the mornings, and only moderate+ S/SE breezes in the afternoon (rather than fresh to occasionally strong, as we’re expecting mid-week).

So at this stage - and I’d like to re-evaluate the timing in more detail on Wednesday - Friday will probably see initially easing S/SE swell but also building E’ly swell with sets likely to reach 4ft to maybe 6ft across exposed beaches through the late afternoon (though a peak is expected on Saturday). Protected spots will be smaller - inner points, considerably so - but there should be a great mix of waves right across SE Qld and Northern NSW coasts to finish the week.

This weekend (January 2nd - 3rd)

A peak in E’ly groundswell is expected on Saturday, with a relatively uniform spread of size and strength across the entire region. 

What I like most about the developing E’ly fetch is its impressive length - almost the same as the width of continental Australia - and its slow westward track, which is unusual for a swell generating system of this size, in this ocean basin.

Whilst wind speeds within the broader system aren't modelled to be radically strong, a couple of embedded low pressure troughs nestled inside the primary fetch will display higher strength than those surrounding (likely south of New Caledonia late Thursday) and these should be the main contributor to the peak wave heights of the swell cycle. 

At this stage, I think exposed beaches should see occasional 4-6ft sets through Saturday, with smaller 3-5ft waves across most points and smaller surf across the inner points and more sheltered locations. Winds are expected to continue as per Friday; early light SW across many regions then moderate+ S/SE throughout the afternoons.

Surf size should ease through Sunday but not to any major degree, just a notch or two down from Saturday’s peak, with similar winds.

So with a larger-than-usual wavelength (for an easterly swell) and winds from the southern quadrant, next weekend is on target for some of the better point waves in quite some time. Let’s see how the models evolve this pattern over the coming days.

Next week (January 4th onwards)

While surf size is expected to ease slowly through Sunday, at the same time yet another impressive E’ly fetch is modelled to be taking shape further east, well to the SE of Fiji.

This fetch looks like it could end up being equally strong, broad and slow moving as the fetch responsible for the Fri/Sat/Sun swell, however it will be located much further away from the mainland so wave heights may end up being a little smaller at the coast than the previous event (though, if core winds end up being stronger, this could tip the balance in favour of a similarly sized swell event, or higher).

In any case, with strong swell periods continuing across the coast we should see a continuation of excellent, sizeable surf. Early indications are for a gradual increase throughout Monday with Tuesday seeing another round of strong surf around 4-5ft+ at exposed beaches (again, smaller on the points).

After this, it’s likely that easterly energy will abate only slowly across the region, so extrapolating this pattern forward and I’d be surprised if we didn't continue to see smaller but very useful easterly swell across the Northern NSW and SE Qld all the way up until the following weekend.

We need quite a few more days to pin down the specifics, but it’s fair to say that both the short term and long term forecasts are looking very exciting indeed.

See you Wednesday!