South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 19th June)

Best Days: SE Qld: biggest and best for the outer points Tues/Wed, though comparitavely small in contrast to Northern NSW (which will be largely blown out away from sheltered spots). Small waves for the rest of the week in SE Qld. Northern NSW will see fun waves at sheltered points all week. Sat/Sun: fun clean beachies in most areas (banks pending). Sun/Mon: building long period S'ly groundswell in Northern NSW with good winds. Not much in SE Qld though. 

Recap: Saturday saw smaller, but steady E’ly swells around the 2ft+ mark across most coasts, a little smaller across the Sunshine Coast, and with early periods of good winds. Surf size eased a smidge into Sunday and winds picked up from the south at times. Today we’ve seen a rapid increase in southerly swell thanks to a Tasman Low, essentially pulling forward the timeline of the swell cycle expected over the coming days. However despite large waves reported in Northern NSW, the Southern Gold Coast outer points haven't seen much more than inconsistent 3ft sets, and it was smaller across the protected Sunshine Coast locations (however, the northern ends of these coasts did see bigger waves in the 3-5ft range). Winds have been gusty from the SW thru’ S so conditions have been pretty tricky. 

Head high sets at Currumbin around 2:30pm

This week (Jun 20 - 23)

Based on model data alone, we should be seeing the swell peak tonight and into the early hours of Tuesday morning, before it eases slowly through Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

However, buoy data tells a different, more complex story - whilst swell heights are still climbing across the Moolooaba and Brisbane buoys, size peaked across Gold Coast and Tweed Coast buoys around lunchtime and have since backed off. 

South of the border, the Byron buoy is still out of action, however the Coffs buoy has been steady at 4m Hsig since midnight, and the trend has been very similar - albeit slightly smaller in size - at the Crowdy Head buoy (near Port Macquarie) since about 9pm last night.

So, this suggests the Gold/Tweed Coast buoys are outliers and we’ve got plenty more swell ahead for the entire region. 

And this fits in with the synoptics too. A broad Tasman Low is currently aimed mainly towards Northern NSW and SE Qld, but it’s undergoing some changes and will slowly weaken the primary SE fetch over the next day or so, as a developing secondary easterly fetch aligns into Southern NSW’s swell window. 

The low’s western flank will then reactivate from late Tuesday onwards, though the fetch it generates will be very meridional (north-south) and aimed into the Coral Sea. As such we’ll see a smaller spread of SE swell from this source later in the week. 

So, the model trend is probably pretty good (i.e. down from Tuesday onwards), albeit overcalling wave heights at the moment - mainly due to the high level of local windswell contamination in the mix. 

And to be honest, with at least moderate to fresh S’ly quadrant winds expected until Thursday (with isolated regions of SW winds) the only surfable options will be at the protected points anyway.

As such, the main talking point in these notes should really be around the size prospects for SE Qld. Due to the position of the Tasman Low, there’s a healthy percentage of south in the current direction so this will shave off a considerable amount of size across protected points (like Noosa). Outer SE Qld points should see some 3-4ft sets on Tuesday though it’ll likely be down to an inconsistent 2-3ft+ by Wednesday morning, and then smaller into the rest of the week.

Expect bigger, but much more wind affected waves at exposed northern ends. 

However, it's worth mentioning that I'm always less confident on size estimates for SE Qld as soon as there's some south in the swell direction, as small increments in degrees seems to have a radical effect on size potential. Consistency often drops with more south in the swell direction too. 

As for Northern NSW, Tuesday morning could see stormy 6-8ft+ waves at south swell magnets but in essence your only options will be at protected corners and points. Semi-exposed locations will still be quite large and with a strong sweep you’ll want a good pair of paddling arms. Expect more manageable conditions by the end of the week. There’ll also be some E/SE swell in the water from Wednesday to Friday, spreading north from our developing fetch aimed to Southern NSW, plus a secondary fetch at the backside of the low, in the eastern Tasman Sea. 

On that note, with light variable winds expected across the Mid North Coast by Thursday, extending north to Far Northern NSW and SE Qld on Friday, it’ll probably be the case that exposed locations (mainly south of the border) will take a few more days to settle down, following what will essentially been almost a couple of weeks of near-continuous southerlies about the coastal margin. 

And that’s before we begin to take a look at the updated bank situation. 

However SE Qld should have fun (though small) clean waves to end the week. 

As a side note, there are a few small long period S’ly swells due to glance the coast over the coming week but with so much mid-range activity in the water, it’s hardly worth discussing them as they won’t be visible anyway. 

This weekend (Jun 24 - 25)

Residual SE and E/SE swells will ease across the region on Saturday, before easing slowly during the day and further into Sunday.

I’m not expecting much more than 2-3ft+ sets at south facing beaches south of Byron early Saturday, down to 1-2ft from these sources into Sunday. Expect smaller surf across SE Qld beaches. 

Conditions should be excellent with light offshore winds on Saturday, and Sunday will also see clean conditions with light winds. 

Of much more interest for Sunday across Northern NSW will be a series of southerly groundswells, generated by an intense Southern Ocean low that’s expected to deliver very large waves to SA, Vic and Tas on Saturday.

We’ll see new swell energy from a couple of sources - initially, some mid-range energy from the northern flank of the front as it pushes east of Tasmania on Friday night, offering 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches.

However the real juice - sourced from 50-60kt winds around the core of the low - will start to nose into Northern NSW during the early hours of Sunday morning (peak swell periods of 19-20 seconds) and should fill in 3-5ft sets at south swell magnets by the afternoon - arriving across the Mid North Coast around lunchtime, with a later arrival north from Yamba. Size will be much smaller at beaches with less southerly exposure.

I’m not confident for much size to reach SE Qld beaches away from the region’s handful of exposed south swell magnets. So, we’ll probably see very small waves both days here. 

Next week (Jun 26 onwards)

Sunday’s long period S’ly swell will ease slowly from Monday, though deliver great waves in the morning with offshore winds. 

Looking further ahead, and a new series of fronts pushing into the lower Tasman Sea will renew strong southerly swells through the middle of next week. More on that in Wednesday’s update.