South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 20th June)

Best Days: Wed/Thurs, maybe Fri: small intermittent S'ly swell across Northern NSW with offshore winds. Expect tiny conditions in SE Qld. Sat/Sun/Mon: large windy S'ly swell, best suited to the SE Qld points. 

Recap: Saturday offered early light offshore winds and a fun, easing combo of east and south swells. Freshening northerly winds into the afternoon created bumpy conditions at most beaches. Sunday was a write-off in general with freshening NE winds and building windswells. Today we’ve seen a fun peaky NE windswell across the coast with mainly NW winds maintaining clean conditions across the northern ends of the various beach breaks. Wave heights managed 3-4ft sets across Northern NSW, with slightly smaller surf across SE Qld. Winds have slowly veered W/NW throughout the day though it is quite blustery (gusting 38kts at the Gold Coast Seaway around 2:30pm). Surf size is also steadily easing from the early morning peak. This weekend 

This week (Tuesday 21st - Friday 24th)

Today’s NE tending E/NE swell will continue to drop steadily in size throughout Tuesday, in fact many beaches - especially across SE Qld - will become very small indeed. Conditions will remain clean with fresh W/NW winds. 

A new low pressure system developing within the broader coastal trough off the Far Southern NSW coast today is expected to see storm force (45kt+) winds east of Bass Strait early Tuesday morning. However, the low will be rotating clockwise throughout this time and only a small percentage of the associated fetch will be aimed within our swell window.

Regardless, the stationary nature of the low at this time still suggests we could see some mid-week swell across exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW. Model guidance is suggesting two pulses from separate intensification periods; the first is due to arrive across the Mid North Coast very late Tuesday (after dinner time) before reaching the Far North Coast early Wednesday morning. A second pulse of swell will then push across the region during Wednesday. 

Confidence is only low as to how much size we will see from these sources. Swell periods will be high (owing to the strong surface wind speeds) but the fetch length is comparatively small and there’s also a degree of shadowing from the Hunter curve that has to be taken into consideration. Either way, we can be sure that only only south swell magnets will pick up any appreciable size - other beaches with less southerly exposure (and most of SE Qld) really won’t see much, if any swell from this system.

As such I’m going to ballpark 2-3ft at a handful of reliable south facing beaches throughout Wednesday. If anything, the second pulse excites me more than the first, so if it’s undersized early morning (especially in the north) don’t completely give up hope. However please bear in mind that most beaches really won’t respond favourably to this swell; you’ll really have to seek out the most exposed location you can think of to maximise your chances. Conditions will fortunately remain clean with fresh W/NW winds, tending W/SW across the Mid North Coast in the afternoon. 

Expect very small surf to persist across SE Qld on Wednesday.

The synoptic charts for the middle to latter part of this week show a series of strong fronts crossing the SE corner of the country. This is a generally unfavourable storm track for the East Coast as it results in continuous westerly winds through the Tasman Sea, and only brief periods where SW winds push east of Tasmania (in the lee of embedded low pressure systems), allowing minor southerly swells to push up the NSW coast. 

Thursday may see another small S’ly swell fill in across exposed south facing beaches, but once again I’m not expecting much size. The overall swell height will be a little higher than Wednesday’s, but with a smaller wavelength (i.e. period) so we’ll probably see similar surf size at exposed spots around 2-3ft. Away from these locations, remaining beaches (and much of SE Qld) will see tiny conditions persisting under a W’ly tending NW breeze. 

To finish the working week, Friday is looking to see a slight decrease in southerly swell with winds holding from the NW. Again, SE Qld will remain tiny.

This weekend (Saturday 25th - Sunday 26th)

As suggested in Friday’s notes, we have a major weather system expected to develop in the western Tasman Sea overnight on Friday, in conjunction with an approaching upper level long wave trough. 

This is expected to drive storm to (currently modelled) hurricane-force S/SW winds just off the Southern NSW coast into Saturday morning - sure, we may see the strength of these winds downgraded a notch over the coming days but the broader pattern has been consistent in the model runs for the last few days so the likelihood of this scenario eventuating is moderate to high.

What’s most likely to happen is the evolution of a broad, powerful Tasman low - not an East Coast Low - well east of the mainland but with an impressive southerly fetch displaying 35-45kt S’ly winds across the bulk of the western Tasman Sea by Saturday night (core wind speed may in fact be higher than this). As such we’re looking at a very windy weekend with very large southerly swells across Northern NSW - it’s too early to put a definitive size range on it right now but a peak around 8-10ft+ at south facing beaches seems a likely scenario.

Therefore, the best surfing opportunities will be at super protected locations in Northern NSW, and SE Qld (the latter will be a much better option).

At this stage we should see 4-5ft surf across the outer SE Qld points (much bigger but wind affected at exposed south facing locations). Wave heights will build all day Saturday, starting from a low base early morning in SE Qld, and peak surf size will probably occur overnight on Saturday (in Northern NSW), or maybe early Sunday (SE Qld). 

Gale-force W/SW tending SW winds on Saturday will then swing from the SW to the S/SW on Sunday and slowly ease. 

Either way, looks like the weekend's best surfing options will be north of the border.

Next week (Monday 27th onwards)

The weekend’s big south swell will ease into early next week however computer models are suggesting a followup system on Monday will renew strong southerly swells across Northern NSW from Tuesday onwards.

We may also see a small long-range E'ly swell early next week from an E/SE fetch developing way out south of Tahiti over the coming days, though no major size is expected. More on this in Wednesday’s update.