South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Guy Dixon (issued Monday 21st March)

Best Days: Each morning, particularly Thursday, Friday and Sunday.

Recap: 

The majority of the weekend offered small but workable options in the 2ft range across the Gold Coast, slightly bigger across the more exposed beaches. Across the Northern NSW coast a strong south-southeast groundswell from a deep low forming across the southern Tasman Sea produced large strong lines in excess of 6ft through the afternoon yesterday, with bigger 8ft bombs on the Mid North Coast. Today the swell was on the ease, with 3-5ft sets at exposed south facing breaks.

As for surface conditions, Saturday morning saw the only decent offshore breezes, otherwise the points have been the go under a south/southwesterly airflow tending south/southeasterly at times. Beaches have been workable, just lacking quality at times.

This week (Tuesday 22nd - Friday 25th):

Residual southeasterly energy is due to fade from the 3ft+ range across exposed back beaches on Tuesday, smaller across the points and north of the border.

An insignificant southeasterly fetch looks to set up over the Tasman later this afternoon and into Tuesday slowing the easing trend a touch particularly across northern NSW. Exposed south facing beaches of northern NSW may see a modest increase on Wednesday afternoon into Thursday, but only to around 2-3ft or so.

As this source of energy winds down, we can look forward to building swell out of our eastern swell window, generated by the interaction of a strong ridge east of New Zealand and a trough residing to the north.

The pressure gradient has been tightening between these systems, steering a broad, stationary and well aligned easterly fetch towards the QLD and NSW coasts, with occasional intensifications.

It is worth mentioning that the latest model runs have killed off the prospect of a dip/low that Ben has been discussing in the past few notes. As seen in the south east QLD WAMS at around 12pm Tuesday until around 6pm Wednesday (http://www.swellnet.com/reports/australia/queensland/gold-coast/wams), the developing system west of New Zealand gets rapidly excluded to the southeast, therefore limiting any significant swell generation for this neck of the woods.

Instead, a slow increasing trend is on the cards generated by the earlier trade-flow itself, providing around 3ft of surf across the exposed beaches on northern NSW on Tuesday, building slowly on Wednesday towards 3-4ft, before a peak on Thursday with sets in the 3-4ft+ range.

The outer points of the Gold Coast are not expected to see the full potential of this swell purely due to the alignment favouring northern NSW, with sizes slowly diminishing the further north of the border you travel.

Off the back of this swell, easterly energy will continue to break across the coasts of northern NSW and south east QLD, although fading slowly. Easterly fetches further afield should maintain very inconsistent energy, however likely overshadowed by a southerly groundswell which is due to migrate up the NSW coast over the weekend.

The southerly wind regime looks to continue in the coming days, remaining fairly steady for the remainder of the week north of the border. Each morning, a light south/southwesterly breeze looks to favour the points, swinging south/southeasterly as the morning progresses. 

This airflow should favour the points, with the back beaches seeing their best opportunity early each morning.

As for northern NSW, winds should ease progressively swing further offshore each morning, from south/southwesterly on Tuesday morning, to light westerly by the end of the week. To counter this however, seabreezes look to come in earlier and easier each day.

This weekend (Saturday 26th - Sunday 27th) and Next week (Monday 28th onward):

By this stage, the Southern Ocean will have been very active, with poor quality frontal progressions churning things up. One particular system however looks to take advantage of this active sea state, steering a decent fetch over the deep Southern Ocean.

Exposed south facing beaches south of the border should see this swell fill in on Sunday, peaking during the afternoon with sets in the 3-4ft range, with consistency being a bit of an issue.

A secondary pulse should then follow close in pursuit, due on Monday morning with inconsistent sets in the 3-4ft range.

Virtually none of this energy will make it north of the border, so the easing easterly swell will be the main source of wave riding potential with options ebbing and pulsing in the 2-3ft range.

Early offshores are on the cards in northern NSW, becoming seabreezey soon after. Similarly, the south east QLD points will be the go each morning under a southerly airstream, tending southeasterly quickly.

Further ahead, the very long-range effects of an intensification within the easterly trade-flow should fill in, providing particularly inconsistent background energy of around 2-3ft.