South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 5th September)

Best Days: Wed/Thurs/Fri: chance for some fun trade swell in SE Qld but winds are dicey for open beaches. Tues/Wed/Thurs: fun small south swell in Northern NSW. Sat/Sun: fun trade swell with mainly good winds in most regions

Recap: So, as was discussed in detail within the comments of Friday’s forecaster notes: Saturday’s NE swell produced a wide range of wave heights between the Sunshine Coast and Mid North Coast. Some locations dipped out in the size department - likely due to the steep N’ly angle of the swell - whilst other locations saw solid 4ft sets. However, conditions were fantastic through the afternoon, with many reports of excellent A-frames running southwards along the open beaches. On Sunday afternoon, a new S’ly swell built across the Mid North Coast and it’s provided strong waves across south facing beaches today in the 3-4ft range (with some isolated reports of bigger waves here and there). However the direction has been generally unfavourable for SE Qld with tiny surf persisting north of the border.

This week (Tuesday 6th - Friday 9th)

A ridge is building across the Coral Sea and it’s going to generate a small trade swell for the rest of the week. 

Wave heights will initially start off small on Tuesday with 1-2ft sets across open SE Qld beaches, but we’ll see a slow increase from Wednesday through to a peak on Friday, where surf size should reach the 4ft mark across the Gold Coast and 4-5ft across open Sunshine Coast beaches.

Winds will be mainly moderate to fresh out of the E/SE up until Thursday, so open beaches will be generally write off, however locations further south than the Sunshine Coast should see isolated pockets of early SW winds (i.e. southern Gold Coast). That being said, surf size will also tail off with increasing southerly latitude. 

As such, SE Qld surfers will have to aim for protected locations which will see slightly smaller surf (due to the relatively low swell periods associated with this trade swell).

On Friday, an approaching change will cause winds will ease slightly across SE Qld but veer more to the E/NE. This is not a great outcome (seeing that we’re expecting the trade swell to peak at this time) but I’ll scrutinise this in more detail in Wednesday’s notes.

South of Ballina, over the next few days winds should be generally light and variable with sea breezes. Into Thursday and Friday, winds will veer north-east (across much of the Northern NSW Coast) and this will create some problems at open beaches, so you’ll need to surf early, and probably inside a northern corner.

Friday’s nor’easter will become quite fresh and gusty across the Mid North Coast and we should see 2-3ft of peaky NE swell by the afternoon too.

Otherwise, across Northern NSW the next few days will see continuing pulses of small long period southerly groundswell, originating from a broad storm track well to the south of the continent. Although the winds within the storm track were not very well aimed into our swell window, the sheer breadth of the fetch, the strength of the core winds and their sustained nature is expected to tip the balance in fun of some fun surf at south facing beaches. 

There are multiple embedded pulses within the overall swell trend for this period, and estimating the precise upwards and downwards phases is difficult. At this stage it looks like most of Tuesday will see easing swells across the region (from today) ahead of an overnight pulse of new S’ly swell that should provide fun waves through Wednesday. A second and third south swell will then maintain this energy through the afternoon and into Thursday.

Our swell model isn’t resolving these swells very well, and in general I don’t have a lot of confidence in the outlook from this swell window, but we should see occasional 2ft sets at south facing beaches through Tuesday with bigger sets pushing 3ft on Wednesday and early Thursday. Expect smaller surf (from this source) at beaches not completely open to the south.

This weekend (Saturday 10th - Sunday 11th)

Looks like a fun weekend of small to moderate trade swell across most beaches, with variable winds. 

A front is expected to push off the Southern NSW coast overnight Friday, leading to a moderate W’ly change across the Mid North Coast on Saturday but likely to linger as a N/NW flow across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld. But without any strength in the pressure gradient, winds will probably be light. And by Sunday we’ll be back to a light variable pattern with sea breezes. 

As for surf, a reinforcing secondary ridge pushing north across the eastern Tasman Sea on Wednesday is expected to merge with the Coral Sea ridge by Thursday. This extension of the trades won’t produce any notable size, but it should draw out the wavelength which in turn should translate to some decent sets across most open beaches arriving Saturday and persisting through Sunday. 

At this stage we’re looking at 3-4ft surf across the Sunshine Coast both days, and 3ft on the Gold, Tweed and Byron open beaches with smaller surf south from Ballina. Let’s take a closer look on Wednesday.

Next week (Monday 12th onwards)

Looks like we have yet another strong frontal passage through the Southern Ocean and lower Tasman Sea over the weekend and early next week that should produce a sustained run of long period southerly swell across Northern NSW for most of next week. 

The weekend’s trade swells are however expected to ease slowly in size during this period.