South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 9th June)

Best Days: It's hard to pick the best days because of a tricky wind outlook. But it appears that late Sat/Sun through much of next week should provide a sustained run of OK surf across the SE Qld points. 

Recap: Small residual swells across SE Qld for the last few days have contrasted with building swells across the Mid North Coast today as a Tasman Low focuses a strong E/SE fetch in the immediate swell window. Interestingly, winds have remained more SW across the Mid North Coast, whilst we’ve seen a S’ly flow through Yamba and S/SW winds across Byron. Surfcam observations from Coffs Harbour suggest size is currently in the 4-5ft range at open beaches and building. Wave heights have built across the Far North Coast though it’s very inconsistent, mainly 1-2ft with the odd bigger set every now and then (as per this morning’s grab from Cabarita). 

The odd runner at Cabarita around lunchtime, via our surfcam

This weekend (Jun 10 - 11)

The weekend’s broad outlook remains the same as discussed through the week, but wave heights have been downgraded a little. 

Furthermore, there is only low confidence in the local winds this weekend due to the close proximity of a complex coastal trough linked to the Tasman Low.  

At this stage it looks like fresh SE tending E/SE winds will envelop the entire region through Saturday, reaching the Gold Coast mid-late afternoon (S/SW prior) and the nosing up into the Sunshine Coast overnight. However, most models expect winds to remain light across the Sunshine Coast into Sunday (greater chance across the northern end, less chance at the southern end). This could be the highlight of the region all weekend if it comes off.

This means that - aside from localised patches of light variable winds - we’re looking at mainly onshore conditions from about Coffs Harbour to the Gold Coast. South from Coffs, we should see better winds as the axis of the trough contracts north. 

As for surf, I’m expecting a gradual increase all day Saturday, starting form a small base north of the border but ultimately reaching a peak across SE Qld beaches through Sunday in the 4ft range. Surf size will be bigger south from Byron, but will likely peak early-mid Saturday south from Coffs (4-6ft sets at exposed beaches, though wind affected), reaching maximum size mid-late Saturday north through to Byron Bay. Wave heights should then ease across Northern NSW into Sunday before levelling out at a same size as SE Qld (~4ft), but are likely to ease steadily south of Coffs as the fetch pushes outside of its primary swell window. 

So on the whole, conditions look tricky but we should see pockets of workable conditions. And these winds will be OK for many outer points in SE Qld. Don’t be surprised if we see localised regions of light SW winds at times too - i.e. better than expected - it’s certainly not uncommon in unstable troughy patterns like this.

Next week (Jun 12 onwards)

Yet more curveballs regarding next week’s synoptic developments. And with such massive swings from model run to model run, we really need to keep our expectations low for now.

The coastal trough and low is expected to fire up again off the Far Northern NSW coast on Monday, though I’m cautious on having much hope of great surf simply due to the wide variation in forecasts over the last few days. 

Nevertheless, we can be reasonably confident for a continued run of moderate E’ly swell across the SE Qld and Far Northern NSW coasts, with gusty winds out of the SE quadrant. All in all, a reasonable period for the outer (and even protected) Qld points. Our models has size temporarily bottoming out across the Gold Coast on Monday morning before increasing to 4-6ft on Tuesday and Wednesday - this could be a little optimistic but the trend is probably close.  

A later, smaller, less windy peak is expected across the Mid North Coast.

Elsewhere, and a series of deep but poorly aligned Southern Ocean lows traversing the waters south of Tasmania in recent days and over the weekend will set up a succession of small long period groundswells for the first half of next week. 

In general these systems - though very powerful, and in some cases quite broad in coverage - are simply too far away or too poorly aligned to benefit out region with any appreciable size. So I’m not expecting anything significant in the surf department for the time frame between Monday and Wednesday - small pulses at south facing beaches in the order of a foot or two at times, but without any major size, strength or consistency. 

However the storm track aligns more meridionally (north/south) later Monday and Tuesday, setting up a better south swell for Thursday that could reach 3ft+ at south facing beaches.

This is still some time away though so let’s check back on Monday to see what fresh curveballs have been thrown our way.  

Even further out again, and the models redevelop a coastal trough along the NSW coast at the end of their runs, but then again the’ve been doing that for the last week or so, and as such we need to take those kinds of projections with a grain of salt.

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!