South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 23rd December)

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Best Days: Most days: plenty of bog standard summer E'ly swell though periods of onshore winds will take the sheen off the surface. Potentially large E'ly swell building Wed, peaking Thurs, easing Fri.

Recap: There’s been a small intermittent E’ly swell in the water for the last few days. Surf size dropped temporarily through Thursday with sets around 2ft, rebounding back to 2-3ft today with a combination of east and south swells (the latter only present in Northern NSW). Winds have been mainly out of the SE across southern Queensland and Far Northern NSW, with periods of light variable winds across remaining Northern NSW coasts.

This weekend (Dec 24th - 25th)

The weekend outlook is relatively steady.

A near-stationary Tasman high will maintain moderate easterly winds across all coasts both days, veering slightly north of east across the Mid North Coast, and slightly south of east across the SE Qld region (mainly Sunshine Coast). 

The synoptic pattern is just strong enough to cause a few surface problems at open beaches but not so strong as to disallow the possibility of isolated regions of early SW winds. It won’t happen everywhere but there will be some locations that’ll see clean morning conditions this weekend.

As for surf, a modest fetch in conjunction with the high will generate small building levels of trade swell but the main swell source this weekend is a distant E’ly fetch that occupied the waters north and north-east of New Zealand earlier this week. Surf size will increase steadily all weekend towards a peak on Sunday (and then into Monday morning), probably starting from an inconsistent 2-3ft on Saturday morning, reaching 3ft to almost 3-4ft on Sunday.

This size range is a little higher than what the models are estimating however I think they’re having some difficulty separating what are essentially multiple concurrent swell trains (in fact the largest modelled swell period is from the NE at over 11 seconds, which I can’t find the source of, which accentuates this point). And we can also expect long breaks between the sets, owing to the large travel distance this swell has undertaken.

Anyway, conditions won’t be amazing but it’ll be a good weekend to hit up the beachbreaks and the outer points for some typically fun summer surf. 

Next week (Dec 26th onwards)

Jeez, next week looks very exciting. 

We’ll see a relatively steady swell trend from Sunday through into Monday; the distant E’ly swell source will start to ease in size but it’ll be replaced by a shorter period trade swell from a strengthening ridge through the Coral Sea. 

Again, most open beaches are looking at set waves somewhere in the 3ft to almost 3-4ft range, though surf size will temporarily ease across Northern NSE beaches south of Yamba, as this new swell source will be initially north of its swell window and thus aimed slightly away from this region. 

A similar size range is expected into Tuesday as the Coral Sea ridge starts to firm up, in fact a few bigger sets may show throughout the day (i.e. 3-4ft building to 3-5ft across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, 2-3ft building to 3ft+ across the Mid North Coast).

Winds both days should be similar to the weekend - that is, a mainly moderate E’ly flow but with isolated regions of early SW winds. 

Later Monday is where the synoptics are really expected to kick into gear.

As tipped in Wednesday’s notes, a tropical depression near New Caledonia is now much more likely to develop early next week - the models have come strongly inline with this scenario and they’re expecting a substantial easterly dip to form between SE Qld and New Caledonia overnight Monday into Tuesday morning. 

This may evolve into a closed low, though more likely a hybrid system than a tropical cyclone (for our purposes, there's not much difference - in fact hybrid lows are often better swell producers than tropical cyclones as they display broader surface wind fields).

The upshot is that this dip/depression/low will be working on an active sea state, and the models have suggested we'll also see a slow westward projection - which will only assist in enhancing wave heights. 

It’s worth noting that GFS is certainly the strongest of the atmospheric models on this event however either way we’re looking at a significant boost in E’ly swell throughout the second half of next week. Surf size should start to build steeply on Wednesday towards a peak on Thursday, before easing on Friday. 

If all pans out, we should see 6-8ft surf across exposed locations (concentrated around SE Qld and Far Northern NSW), with smaller waves running down the protected points. 

Local winds are tricky to pin down just yet as there is some divergence between the models on the evolution of this system particularly close to the mainland. GFS in particular focuses the primary system to the south whilst spinning up a weaker low off the SE Qld region. So, anything is possible at this stage though I’m reasonably confident we’ll see at least day (if not more) of good winds for the points.

And the good news is that there’s no major signs of a break in the overall blocking pattern which increases the potential for secondary swell sources to develop in our Tasman swell windows shortly thereafter. So, it’s looking like a very prosperous Xmas holiday period.

Have a safe Xmas, see you on Monday!