South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 7th March)

Best Days: No great days (compared to recent weeks) but Tues looks the best south of the border, and Thurs PM, Fri, Sat and Sun the pick north of the border. However we will see small peaky waves at most open beaches, most days. 

Recap: Saturday saw a small mix of leftover short range E/SE swell, and an afternoon increase in new long range (but only mid-period) E’ly swell, generated by a fetch off the northern tip of New Zealand’s North Island mid week. Because of Saturday afternoon’s moderate onshores, this swell performed the best on Sunday where winds remained only light onshore for much of the day; sets held in around the 3ft+ mark across Far Northern NSW in the morning (smaller elsewhere) before tailing off into the afternoon. It was interesting to note no discernible difference in peak swell periods both days, though the swell was certainly stronger Sunday than Saturday in my neck of the woods. However compared to recent weeks it wasn’t anything to write home about. Today we’ve seen surf size slump a little more, with similar winds. 

This week (Mar 8th - 11th)

In summary: there’s nothing major on the cards for the foreseeable future. But, there will be waves most days with a moderate summer trade pattern expected to remain steady across our eastern swell window.

A slow moving Tasman High and a broad, but otherwise uninteresting tropical depression across the Coral Sea will keep the trade swell engine humming just enough to supply the beach breaks with small peaky waves for much of this week. 

In Friday’s notes I mentioned a small secondary E’ly fetch developing off the northern coast of NZ would push westward over the weekend, and this would renew E’ly swell about all coasts into Tuesday. However wind strengths weren’t very high (lower than what generated Sunday’s small pulse) and despite pushing a little closer to our region I just don’t think there’ll be enough for much more than an occasional 2ft, maybe 2-3ft set at exposed beaches in Far Northern NSW, with marginally smaller surf across the Mid North and SE Qld Coasts. Keep your expectations pegged appropriately low. 

Otherwise, the trades are ebbing and flowing to our north-east and east, and they will continue to provide intermittent energy all week. With no definitive swell fronts, and a reasonable chance that all of the swell generated will be sufficiently weak to be quite tidally susceptible (plus with the added bonus of persistent onshores, even if only light to moderate in strength), it’s hard to pick the best day of the week. 

But at this stage, it seems that we may encounter a slightly weaker period of swell activity from Wednesday lunchtime through Thursday early afternoon. Tuesday’s pulse should keep most beaches active with peaky 2-3ft sets (though mainly south of the border; it could be a fraction smaller at many SE Qld beaches), and a slightly stronger round of E’ly swell is expected late Thursday that should fill out Friday with some decent waves - though this time ‘round more favourably suited towards SE Qld, and maybe a smidge higher around 2-3ft+ (smaller south of Ballina).

So in short: aside from the potential onshores, Tuesday looks fun across Northern NSW, with Thursday afternoon and Friday probably the pick in SE Qld. There’ll still be small peaky waves at the open beaches on the other days but you’ll have to capitalise on the early windows of light variable winds for the best surf. 

This weekend (Mar 12th - 13th)

The tropical depression across the Coral Sea is still expected to slowly intensify but the latest model runs have put this back ‘till Friday and Saturday. And there’s not a lot of strength in it. Still, we are looking at a slowly building trade swell all weekend with fun peaky beaches across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. 

At this stage, surf size is expected to increase slowly both days towards a peak on Monday; most open beaches north of Ballina should see 2-3ft surf on Saturday, reaching 3-4ft by Sunday afternoon, with possibly a few bigger waves across the Sunshine Coast later in the day. 

South of Ballina, surf size will be a little smaller but the same trend should play out, and the swell direction will have a little more north in it.

As for local winds - a weak synoptic flow will result in similar conditions to what we’re expecting this week, that is light and variable in the morning, tending onshore into the afternoon. Winds may veer more NE across the Mid North Coast but it probably won’t have any major strength. 

All in all, rather uninspiring but certainly surfable. And with the short range peaky energy on offer there’ll be lots of options to spread out amongst the open beaches, instead of crowding the points. 

Next week (Mar 14th onwards)

Still nothing major to hang your hat on right now but for surfers in SE Qld we’re expecting a relatively good, if somewhat bog standard trade flow  to persist into next week. Which means perhaps slightly above average (sized) trade swell for a couple of days. Monday's peak should maintain 3-4ft waves north of the border (maybe even a little bigger on the Sunny Coast), and smaller surf south of Ballina. 

The ends of the model runs are showing some more significant development in our far eastern swell window - all of which have the possibility to super-charge the pre-existing easterly flow at some point and generate a bigger, stronger easterly swell during the middle to latter part of next week - but for now it’s too far away to have any confidence in. Let’s check back on Wednesday to see how things are looking for the long term.