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

Best Days: Small beachies Tues (make sure your location likes NW winds), even smaller Wed. Strong series of south swells building Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun. Lots of size south of Byron but not much size in SE Qld due to the direction. More south swell next week too!

Recap: Plenty of E’ly swell all weekend, plus an intermittent S'ly swell, with early light winds and moderate afternoon sea breezes. Wave heights seemed to peak on Saturday afternoon with sets in the 3-4ft range at open beaches; smaller 3ft surf then filled out on Sunday and it’s maintained this size range into today - albeit with freshening northerly winds creating junky surf from early-mid morning onwards. 

This week (May 10th - 13th)

Looks like a couple of fun days of small beach breaks ahead.

The weekend’s easterly swell will continue to slowly ease in size, but it won’t evaporate completely for a few more days - a small residual E/SE fetch was still present this morning, just NW of New Zealand’s North Island. So this should keep exposed beaches humming with surf into Wednesday, even Thursday morning should see straggler sets across exposed breaks.

The main issue for the short term is the wind direction. We’ve got pre-frontal northerlies right now, and they’re causing a terrible mess at most open stretches. The front is due to push through overnight on Tuesday, but much of the daytime prior should see NW winds develop across most regions. There’s a reasonable chance that some locations will still see some leftover northerly wobble early Tuesday morning, so aim for the northern ends and you should see good options. Wednesday will be much cleaner under a moderate W/SW breeze.

As for size, we’re likely to see the largest waves across Far Northern NSW on Tuesday (very inconsistent 2-3ft sets), with slightly smaller surf across the SE Qld and Mid North Coasts. Expect smaller waves into the afternoon and further throughout Wednesday as the east swell continues to fade.

The front crossing the coast overnight Tuesday is associated with a deep mid-latitude low tracking just south of Tasmania, and will be followed by a couple of secondary fronts, each of which will generate varying degrees of southerly swell for the latter part of the week and the weekend. 

The models have moved around a little in the last few days - aligning the main storm track slightly more zonal in orientation - however the core ingredients are still there for some solid south swell across exposed south facing beaches, especially south of Byron Bay. Additionally, the secondary fronts will be working on the active sea state generated by the previous front, which enormously assists in swell production (and often overrides some of the directional deficiencies related to these zonal storm tracks).

At this stage it’s difficult to get a precise arrival time and likely peak of each individual swell - I’ll have a better idea on Wednesday. But for now, it’s looking like Thursday’s swell will be in the water across the Mid North Coast early morning, but probably not the Far North Coast until late morning or lunchtime. Friday will then see a combination of easing S’ly swell from Thursday but with a second, possibly stronger pulse arriving during the day. 

As for size - I now think that Thursday’s pulse could end up being a little bigger than previously estimated, with 5-6ft+ sets likely at some exposed south facing beaches south of Byron. Friday’s secondary swell could a fraction bigger at times, though I’m not as confident on it pushing north to eight feet, as I was in Friday’s notes. But let’s see how the models evolve over the coming days. 

Away from south facing beaches, surf size will be much smaller in Northern NSW (3-4ft Thursday, a little bigger on Friday) - these acute directional south swells often produce massive variations in size.

Across SE Qld, the direction will really hamper wave heights: most locations will struggle to rake in a foot or two, however the region’s handful of exposed south swell magnets may see occasional 3ft sets (not until later Thursday at the earliest though).

And winds? Light and variable both days, mainly offshore in the mornings with weak afternoon sea breezes. Well worth the effort. 

This weekend (May 14th - 15th)

Yet another long period southerly swell is expected to push up the coast over the weekend, generated by another strong cold front in this week's series of vigorous Southern Ocean activity.

Although the swell periods look insane from this system (18, maybe even 20 seconds), the core fetch responsible will be even more zonal in alignment so I am doubtful that we’ll see quite as much ocean swell size across the region. 

Nevertheless, we are still looking at another strong and sizeable south swell for this time period, and south facing beaches in Northern NSW are likely to see 4-6ft sets at times, with once again much smaller surf at locations not completely open to the south. And SE Qld will again dip out because of the unfavourable southerly swell direction.

The main task for me in Wednesday’s notes will be working out the timing of this swell, because ahead of it - Saturday morning - we’ll see much smaller surf off the backside of Friday’s pulse. And conversely, Sunday will also see an easing trend. So it’s important that we work out the precise timing of when the swell is due to peak as I'm currently of the opinion that it may be for only a short duration. And some of that could be overnight on Saturday. 

Early indications re: weekend winds are for light variable winds Saturday morning, tending N’ly and freshening a little into the afternoon (main influence south of Ballina) before tending NW early Sunday ahead of a SW tending S’ly change into the afternoon. 

Next week (May 16th onwards)

More strong fronts are expected through the Tasman Sea from next weekend onwards which suggests more strong southerly swells for the first half of next week. Which.. will continue the spell of small surf across SE Qld. Time for Qld surfers to book the car in for a service as it looks like you’ll be doing plenty of miles over the coming weeks!