South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 14th October)

Best Days: No great days. Sat AM should see early light winds in Northern NSW and easing S'ly swell, and there's an outside chance for a peaky NE windswell Mon PM and a very late NW wind change, but it's not worth getting too excited about.  

Recap: Thursday remained tiny across SE Qld, with freshening S’ly winds in the wake of a shallow S’ly change. The Mid North Coast saw a building windswell during the day, which started to increase across the Far North Coast late afternoon, but the biggest waves occurred early morning before easing in size today - though conditions were below average, mainly early SW winds tending S/SE throughout Northern NSW. SE Qld has seen a small short range SE windswell build today, with 2ft+ waves across some open beaches though the outer points have remained woefully small.

This week (Oct 13th - Oct 14th)

Saturday morning should offer the best waves of the weekend. But, keep your expectations low as there’s not going to be a lot of quality.

Right now the S’ly swell across Northern NSW is easing, and the moderate ridge across the Coral Sea is pulling slowly north, weakening within Queensland's short range eastern swell window. As such surf size is expected to ease from both sources. 

South facing beaches south of Byron Bay should see early 2-3ft+ sets but they’ll abate during Saturday. Winds are expected to lighten off overnight and should swing light W/SW early morning though NE sea breezes are expected into the afternoon.

Across SE Qld we’ll see the small short range SE swell ease slowly through Saturday. Most Gold Coast beaches are looking at peaky 1-2ft sets, with occasional bigger bombs at the far north and southern end of the coast. The Sunshine Coast is positioned a little closer to the source fetch and should be a little bigger, maybe 2-3ft at some open beaches but probably not enough size for the points. Unfortunately, local winds will remain moderate to fresh SE here on Saturday; we will see small pockets of SW winds early morning but this will probably be confined to the southern Gold Coast.

Smaller surf is then expected into Sunday. The Coral Sea Ridge will slowly expand eastwards and this will maintain peaky swell with more easterly in its direction across SE Qld, with 2ft+ sets across the Sunshine Coast and 1-2ft waves across the Gold and Tweed Coasts, but smaller surf south from Byron. Small leftover south swell is expected across remaining Northern NSW beaches. 

The main problem on Sunday is the threat of strengthening northerly winds. They’ll reach gale force strength about the lower Mid North Coast by late afternoon, but it’ll be lighter in the morning.

Winds won’t become quite as strong across the Northern NSW or SE Qld coasts but this direction still won’t be favourable for many locations, apart from early morning when we may see a light NW breeze. 

Next week (Oct 17th onwards)

Early next week looks pretty poor.

With only a small residual E’ly swell about the SE Qld coast, most regions will be hampered by strengthening northerly winds for much of Monday.

They’ll kick up a short range N’ly swell for exposed beaches during the day - biggest across the Mid North Coast with 3-4ft sets into the afternoon, smaller across the Far North and Southern Gold Coast swell magnets with maybe 2-3ft sets - but local winds look like they may not swing until very late in the day.

The expected wind change will be the result of an approaching front that’s forecast to cause a NW wind change, ahead of strong to gale force W/SW winds across the Lower Mid North Coast in the last few hours before dark. Gusty W/SW tending SW winds will then extend up across the Northern NSW coast into the evening, reaching the border around midnight.

However, winds may not swing NW across locations north of Port Macquarie or Coffs Harbour, until dinnertime (or later).

The timing of this change couldn’t be worse as we’ll see a peak in size late afternoon, but once the wind swings it’ll shut off the supply of new swell, which means there’ll be ten hours of darkness whereby the short range energy will ease in size.

So, Tuesday morning will be nice and clean but very small out of the NE. 

In fact, we’ll probably see some small south swell spread up the coast on Tuesday, originating from the SW gales developing off the Central and Mid North Coasts overnight Monday. This is only expected to produce minor waves at south facing beaches in Northern NSW though and shouldn’t be relied upon at this early stage.

Otherwise there’s nothing of interest for the rest of the working week. A new S’ly swell is expected across Northern NSW on Wednesday afternoon, originating from a front pushing through the lower Tasman Sea in the early hours of Wednesday morning. However, local winds look like they will also be out of the south so conditions may not be very good anyway. I’ll revise this in Monday’s outlook.

Freshening northerly winds are then expected Thursday and Friday. 

The only other area to keep an eye on next week is a small stationary trough south of Fiji early next week. Wind speeds are not expected to become especially strong but it should be sufficient enough to generate a small E'ly swell for the coast, probably around Thursday or Friday of next week (though it may be hard to distinguish beneath the local N'ly windswell).

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!