South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 29th April)

Best Days: Most days should have good waves. 

Recap: Pumping waves across many beaches and outer points both days, with size in the 3ft to 4ft range in the north; a little smaller in the south. Mainly light winds in most regions.

This weekend (April 30th - May 1st)

Looks like a fun weekend of waves. But make the most of Saturday as Sunday will see a small drop in size, and more concerningly (for SE Qld surfers) winds are expected to pick up from the north.

Today’s size range should hold into Saturday morning, with 3-4ft sets at open beaches ahead of an easing trend throughout the day. Light variable tending offshore winds are expected early morning, with light to moderate afternoon sea breezes from the NE. So the morning is certainly the pick on the low incoming tide.

Surf size will be a little smaller south of about Ballina due to the northern location of the easterly fetch responsible for this swell. But there should be plenty of peaky waves across most open beaches.

Smaller surf will then prevail through Sunday (2-3ft in the north, a little smaller south of Ballina) however winds will swing from a light to moderate NW to a moderate N’ly early-mid morning, becoming fresh at times south of about Yamba or Coffs Harbour.

Although no major strength is expected in the wind north of Byron, anything out of the northern quadrant isn’t positive for the outer points so you’ll be best off aiming for the backbeaches and other south-facing locations. Aim for an early surf for the best waves.  

Next week and beyond (May 2nd onwards)

Steady moderate trades across our far eastern swell window (north and north-east of New Zealand) are generating small easterly swells that will provide fun waves throughout most of next week. For the most part, we’ll see the biggest wave across Far Northern NSW (generally 2ft, very occ 2-3ft) with slightly smaller surf across SE Qld and the Mid Northern NSW coast. 

This pattern should persist for much of the week, with small, lully east swells that’ll go through periods of energetic sets and then long spells of lacklustre waves (highly susceptible to the tides, too). Winds should be good in general - a broad trough across the coast will maintain generally light variable winds but we may see a few brief periods of squally conditions as small embedded troughs move across the region (Mon thru' Wed). 

Our south swell window still looks pretty dormant. We have a small cut-off low expected to form east of Tasmania overnight on Sunday that may generate a brief, small, directional south swell for Tuesday (Mid North Coast) and maybe very late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning (Northern Rivers) - however I suspect there won’t be much size in it, with only the exposed south swell magnets seeing any energy glancing the coast. Keep your expectations low from this source (I’ll update again on Monday).

Otherwise, the trades across the South Pacific are expected to firm up throughout the week, leading to an extended period of small to medium sized east swell. At this stage Thursday is on target for a minor increase with a slightly bigger increase pegged for Friday, possibly some 3ft+ sets at swell magnets in Far Northern NSW by the afternoon (smaller elsewhere). 

Furthermore, this fetch is expected to remain stationary, if possibly even exhibiting a slight westward track into the end of next week - which suggests next weekend and first half of the following week should see a similar size range, possibly a smidge more size. 

The negatives associated with this pattern is that the fetch will remain quite some distance from the mainland. But, thanks to a deepening trough across the northern Tasman Sea, the fetch looks like it’ll be uniform right up to its head - which will possibly counteract the otherwise inconsistent nature of this distant swell source.

Additionally, the broad trough across the Northern Tasman Sea should result in generally light winds across the coastal margin, leading to favourable autumn link conditions for quite a few days. 

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!