South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 24th March)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: Fun SE swell south of the border Saturday, easing slowly on Sunday, with mainly light winds and sea breezes. Don't expect much size in SE Qld though. 

Recap: Our most recent trade swell has eased slowly over the last few days, though we’re still seeing fun peaky waves around the 2ft+ mark across the Sunshine Coast, with smaller surf south from the Gold Coast. Winds are light early so conditions are clean though sea breezes are likely later. A new S/SE swell is also building across the Mid North Coast and should reach the Far North Coast later this afternoon. This swell has been generated by a Tasman Low, of which Southern NSW is seeing 4ft sets from the same source this morning. There have also been reports yesterday and today of a small underlying long period S’ly groundswell across Southern NSW, originating from a polar low south of the continent earlier in the week, so it’s likely these waves (though smaller in size) will be in the mix at reliable south swell magnets in Northern NSW. 

This weekend (Mar 25th - 26th)

The models have ever so slightly delayed the backside phase of the Tasman Low for today, which means it’ll remain active for a little longer than anticipated in Wednesday’s notes, and will therefore provide good quality surf for much of the weekend. 

Wave heights should reach a peak though Saturday, and easing only slowly throughout Sunday. South facing beaches south of Byron will pick up the most size, with sets around 3-4ft from two sources - the Tasman Low, and also the sneaky long period S’ly swell mentioned above (from the polar low south of the continent on Monday). However this secondary south swell will be smaller than the Tasman Low swell, and it's expected to ease in size throughout Saturday.

Locations that don’t exhibit good southerly exposure will be smaller in size, and SE Qld will see much smaller surf this weekend as it really doesn’t enjoy swells from this direction, unless they’re particularly large or powerful.

Therefore, most SE Qld beaches will see just a small blend of minor trade swell and refracted S’ly swell. The region’s handful of reliable south swell magnets may pick up occasional 2ft+ sets on Saturday but there’ll be long breaks between them. Slightly smaller surf is expected thorughout Sunday.

As for conditions, a slack pressure gradient should result in light variable winds and weak afternoon sea breezes in all regions. So, conditions will be pretty good both days - just aim for Saturday for the most size. Just keep in mind that “variable” implies any direction - so it’s possible we may see some form of onshore at times (biggest risk is a moderate N/NE breeze in the afternoons) but for the most part conditions should be very good, especially in the mornings.

As a side note, a tropical low is developing in the Central/Northern Coral Sea and it’s likely to intensify into a Tropical Cyclone over the weekend (to be named TC Debbie), with a coastal crossing expected on Monday near Townsville.

Whilst this system is well and truly outside of SE Qld’s swell window - and won’t generate any direct swell for us whatsoever - in the absence of any other swell across the region, we may in fact see a handful of super exposed north facing locations picking up some small, rare northerly swell from the current fetch around the low's northeast quadrant.

Most locations south of Fraser Island will be shadowed due to the western position of this system, and the strongest part of this fetch will occur as the low moves close into the mainland (useless for SE Qld), but the early stages of this system right now has a reasonably broad 30kt fetch well east of Cooktown that could theoretically provide a small spread of swell to one or two exposed locations in SE Qld. Or, some funky locations across the Capricornia Coast - though you’ll want to have finely tuned your swell windows and the shadowing effects of the Great Barrier Reef.

Our Fraser Island data point (click here) is picking up 1.2m of N’ly swell at 8.5 seconds through Sunday and Monday - which is a pretty good estimate from this system - so if you’ve got nothing better to do, it’d always be worth a sniff around the region. You never know what you might find. 

Next week (Mar 27th onwards)

Still nothing amazing expected next week. The weekend’s swells from the Tasman Low will ease steadily through Monday, becoming tiny on Tuesday, and winds will remain light with a probably freshening NE tendency through Tuesday (but likely limited to the Mid North Coast). 

And on that note it looks like we’re coming up to a lengthy spell of small surf again.

A shallow S’ly change will push across Southern NSW on Tuesday, but it’s expected to peter out and won’t have much potential trailing behind. 

As mentioned on Wednesday, the Tasman Low's track over the weekend pushes it near New Zealand and the models are suggesting a very small but tight E'ly fetch will develop along its southern flank. However as feared, they’ve downgraded this in the latest runs so I’m not expecting much energy from this source through the middle of the week. I’ll take a closer look on Monday but for now it’s not shaping up to deliver much size (only the Mid North Coast was touted in Wednesday's notes anyway). 

Otherwise, the Southern Ocean's storm track will be aimed away from our swell window and the only possible systems of note are a small stalled trough in the lee of Tuesday’s southerly change (low local swell potential for Northern NSW right now), and some indications of developing tropical activity south of Fiji during the middle of the week - though without any substance at the present time.

I‘m also expecting a large high pressure system to develop east of New Zealand next week, and this, combined with a tropical low to the north, should result in a good easterly squeeze between the two and kick up a long range east swell for early to middle part of the following week. However it’s a long time away and with such large travel distances, we probably won’t see any great deal of size at the Australian mainland (and certainly not a lot of consistency either). 

So, make the most of the weekend's fun SE swell! See you Monday.