South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 29th June)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: fun tending small waves at the open beaches (best in Northern NSW) with offshore winds. Dont expect much in SE Qld away from the swell magnets. Sun: small clean south swell at swell magnets in Northern NSW (don't expect much, if any swell in SE Qld). 

Recap: A strong S’ly swell built across the coast on Tuesday, reaching 6ft+ at south facing beaches in Northern NSW by late in the day. SE Qld was very small due to the swell direction but some open locations (such as D’Bah) picked up fun 3ft sets. Today surf size has trended downwards though south facing beaches in Northern NSW were still quite solid early morning, offering 5-6ft sets. SE Qld has remained much smaller but there have been small peelers on the outer points all day. 

Late Tuesday bowls at D'Bah. Not a bad perspective from our live surfcam, eh?

This week (Thursday 30th - Friday 1st July)

No changes for the rest of the week. We’re at the top of a steady downwards trend and open beaches will come to life as winds swing to the west.

The Tasman Low responsible for this mid-week spike has now cleared our swell window as it tracks eastwards. We still have a poorly-aligned southerly fetch in the north-eastern Tasman Sea that should generate some small sideband energy, but in general it won’t be enough to arrest the otherwise easing trend from the primary source of the last two days. This southerly fetch will slowly rotate clockwise over the next 12 hours, completely shutting down the swell supply to the Australian East Coast by Thursday morning.

The main positive feature of the next few days is a brisk cold front that’s due to cross the coast on Friday morning. This will freshen W/NW tending W’ly then W/SW winds across most coasts (a little lighter in the north) and should clean up the lumps and bumps from the last few days of southerlies. Prior to this Thursday should see light variable winds across most regions. 

As for size, once again we’re looking at only small waves across SE Qld that’ll become tiny through Thursday afternoon and Friday, away from the swell magnets. Your best choice for size will be south of the border (specifically, south of Byron) where we should see early 3ft+ sets at south facing beaches on Thursday easing to 2-3ft by lunchtime, and then further to 2ft into Friday. Expect smaller surf at beaches with less southerly exposure.

So, whilst Friday looks like it’ll offer the best conditions across the open beaches of Northern NSW under the westerly breeze, you’re much better off making the most of Thursday morning’s greater size potential. 

And if you're in SE Qld, you'll have to fuel the truck up for a road trip south of the border.

This weekend (Saturday July 2nd - Sunday July 3rd)

A strong S/SW fetch is expected to develop off the Southern NSW coast in the wake of Friday’s cold front, and this is the only source of new swell for the weekend.

Unfortunately, this system looks like it’ll exit quickly to the east, and with only our acute south swell window expected to become activated, it’s looking like a tiny weekend of waves across SE Qld. 

Surf size will build through Saturday (starting from a low base in the Far North), and will become quite solid at south facing beaches in Northern NSW by late afternoon, but those locations picking up most of the size (~4ft) are likely to be rather wind affected.

Models currently push the front well off the coast by the afternoon so there’s a chance that the early fresh SW tending S/SW airstream will abate mid-late afternoon, but it’ll take some time for the surface wobble to clean up. So keep your expectations low.

Beaches not facing due south will be much smaller than exposed spots, and across SE Qld I’d be surprised if we saw much more than a foot and a half north of the border by close of business Saturday.

Sunday looks much better on the surface with a weak high pressure system providing light variable winds, but Saturday’s south swell will ease steadily during the day. South facing beaches - mainly in the Far North up to about Byron - may see early 3ft sets but they’ll ease to around 2ft during the day, and it’ll be smaller elsewhere due to the southerly swell direction. 

SE Qld is looking at clean but tiny conditions on Sunday, perhaps a foot at open beaches if we’re lucky.

Next week (Monday July 4th onwards)

Wow, the models have done a complete about-face for early next week.

In Monday’s runs there was a suggestion for an amplifying upper level long wave trough driving a series of strong fronts through the lower Tasman - generating a series of back-to-back south swells - but these have evaporated in the latest guidance. 

Instead we’re looking at a couple of days of light winds and small residual swells early in the week, with a suggestion for a new Tasman Low to form close to the coast around Wednesday or Thursday. However, this is right at the end of the model runs so we really need a few more days for confidence to increase (and the models to converge) before we start to pin down specifics. More on this in Friday’s update.