South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 13th June)

Best Days: Tues/Wed/Thurs: good waves at sheltered points in the north. Light winds south from Coffs with better options at open beaches. Fri/Sat: fun beachies at locations that can handle some north in the wind. Mon/Tues: potentially excellent short range E'ly swell with offshore winds

Recap: Slowly easing E’ly swell on Saturday with generally good winds. Strengthening winds from the southern quadrant on Sunday with a late increase in short range S/SE swell. Swell periods increasing and wave heights also holding steady, whilst backing to the SE, with building surf from the SE across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW today, but accompanied by gusty E/SE winds. Smaller surf and lighter winds in the south.

This week (Tuesday 14th - Friday 17th)

It’s a pretty standard round of summer surf ahead for South-east Queensland and Northern NSW. 

Except we’re about to begin the third week of winter. 

Still, there’ll be no complaints from those surfers with access to a sheltered point break. The trades are strengthening across the northern Tasman Sea, extending a fair distance back into the south-western Pacific and also through the Coral Sea. The ridge will slowly retreat north from Tuesday onwards but we’ll see some form of swell generating activity within our swell window right through until the weekend. Which means there’ll be waves every day.

Also in the mix is a smaller but better quality E’ly groundswell, generated by the eastward retreating Tasman trough positioned north and north-east of New Zealand last Friday. However it’ll be hard to notice this energy under the short period noise. 

Overall, ocean swell size is expected to plateau later Tuesday and early Wednesday, and then ease from Wednesday afternoon onwards. However, the wavelength (or swell period) is expected to draw out concurrently, which should arrest the easing trend, maintaining similar wave heights into Thursday morning at least (if not the afternoon) before a more prominent easing trend then occurs through Friday and into the weekend.

Wave heights will be largest across the Sunshine Coast - reaching a bumpy peak in the 4-6ft range at open beaches later Tuesday and early Wednesday; but much smaller on the points.

Surf size is then expected to be marginally smaller from the Gold and Tweed Coasts through to the Ballina Shire (peaking 4-5ft open beaches, smaller points), and then south of Ballina we’re looking incrementally smaller surf size through to the lower Mid North Coast where the peak in trade swell will probably occur through Wednesday and will probably reach about 4ft. Not that much of a difference overall, but enough to warrant a mention.

The easing swell size later this week will probably see much locations down by a foot, maybe one to two by late Friday (for reference, more size loss is expected in SE Qld than across the Mid North Coast). 

Also in the mix this week - from Wednesday onwards - is a series of long period southerly groundswells, generated by an active frontal progression through the Southern Ocean, south of Tasmania. In general, the storm track will be quite zonal - west to east - which means it won’t be aimed very well within our swell window. But the sheer breadth of the resulting fetches and their considerable strength (up around 50-60kts at the core of the primary system, later Tues/Wed) means we’ll see some very impressive swell periods pushing up the coast, possibly in excess of 19-20 seconds. 

Several small groundswells will ebb and flow across Northern NSW between Wednesday morning and Friday morning; no major size is expected but inconsistent 2-3ft sets at exposed south swell magnets can’t be ruled out during this period.

However, sometime on Friday - probably late morning or lunchtime - is when we’re expecting to see the main event from this series across the Mid North Coast, with the largest waves and longest periods. South swell magnets could see sets pushing 4-6ft at times, though locations with less southerly exposure will be considerably smaller.

The timing on this swell is currently unclear - I’m not sure whether it’ll reach the Far North Coast before dark, but I’ll have a better idea on Wednesday. There is a very real chance that the peak of the south swell may occur under the cover of darkness across northern regions.

Most of SE Qld won’t pick up much, if any size from this south swell, apart from the region’s handful of exposed south swell magnets.

Anyway, let’s take a closer look on Friday.

This weekend (Saturday 18th - Sunday 19th)

We are looking at a very mixed bag of surf, wind and weather this weekend. 

In general, Saturday will most likely see easing swells from both the east and south, and moderate NW winds ahead of a late southerly change across the Mid North Coast. Looks like a good day for most open beach breaks with sets in and around the 3ft mark out of the east, slightly bigger across Far Northern NSW. South swell magnets south from Byron could see a handful of 4-5ft sets at dawn if we're lucky but it'll be a steady downwards trend throughout the day.

On Sunday, local winds are expected to become tricky (read: strengthening onshore) as the early stages of what appears to be a developing ECL starts to unfold across the coast. No significant new swell is likely at this stage - apart from building short range swell associated with the strengthening onshores - so right now, Saturday is certainly the pick of the weekend. But let’s see how the models are handling the situation on Wednesday’s update.

Next week (Monday 20th onwards)

Jeez, the models are looking quite dynamic for early next week. 

We’ve got quite a primed environment too, with positive SSTs anomalies in the western Tasman Sea (up to 4.5 degrees off the South Coast, see image to the right), a developing surface trough over the eastern states (dragging in a lot of moisture from Qld) and an approaching upper level cold pool from the west. And also, a potentially blocking high over New Zealand longitudes. 

These are crucial ingredients for an East Coast Low to develop, and the models have been slowly converging on this scenario (off Southern NSW) over the last couple of days.

Such a scenario would invariably be focused towards the south, but as per last week’s events, the E/NE indeed into the surface trough could very well generate some punchy E’ly swell for Northern NSW and SE Qld coasts. And usually, winds swing offshore westerly as the trough pushes south. 

Early indications suggest this will be a much different event to last week’s setup - gut feel is that we’re looking at a smaller event of much shorter duration. But there’s certainly the potential for some excellent waves across all coast around Monday and Tuesday. 

Let’s see how the models are stacking up over the coming days.