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

Best Days: Sat: make the most of the easing SE swell. Biggest south of the border. Sun: flukey long period S'ly swell. Could be some great waves at reliable south swell magnets, but will largely bypass most coasts. Tues/Wed: fresh S'ly swell for Northern NSW. Late Fri/Sat/Sun: solid south swell for Northern NSW.

Recap: We’ve had excellent surf to finish the week, with strong 4ft surf out of the SE across Northern NSW, and smaller surf across SE Qld. Most notable was the more pronounced easing trend across the SE Qld points, due to a slight swing in the swell direction from the E/SE to SE. Conditions have been excellent with generally light winds.  

This weekend (Jun 24 - 25)

The primary source of our current SE swell began to abate yesterday so we’re looking at a steady easing trend through Saturday. The morning may deliver some 2-3ft sets across open beaches in Northern NSW (smaller across SE Qld) but it’ll ease further and become much less consistent throughout the day. Sunday will see even smaller surf from this source. 

The good news is that surface conditions are looking excellent on Saturday with light offshore winds just about everywhere. So aim for an open beach and make the most of the great winter conditions.

On Sunday, surface conditions will remain excellent with light variable winds, and we have a couple of sources of new south swell on the way for Northern NSW. However, the actual surf outlook from them is tricky so confidence is not high that there'll be anything amazing in the surf department.

As a side note, I’m not expecting much, if any energy to make its way north of the border from these upcoming south swells so tiny conditions will prevail across SE Qld beach from Sunday through much of next week (apart from a handful of super exposed south swell magnets). 

So, back to Northern NSW. The passage of a low and cold front through the southern Tasman Sea tonight will be related to a large swell event for Vic, SA and Tas on Saturday. The same swells will move up the NSW coast but will be heavily diluted. 

Initially, the front pushing north-east of Tasmania overnight tonight will push into our swell window around dawn - latest models have the head of the 30kt+ fetch east of Batemans Bay around 7am. 

The new south swell resulting from this fetch is therefore scheduled to arrive mid-late afternoon across Sydney beaches, but probably won’t reach the Mid North Coast until the evening. Swell energy from this fetch will build overnight and the early Sunday session should see 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches south of Byron Bay, with smaller residual SE swell elsewhere.

This fetch will quickly clear to the east, so this south swell is likely to peak sometime the morning and then trend down through Sunday afternoon - the models keep the energy there after lunch but I'm not quite as keen - though this is a more likely solution in the Far North due to the slightly later arrival (and therefore departure) time. 

However, at the same time we will also see a new long period south swell build across the coast. But, the models have moved around since Wednesday’s runs. So, the outlook has been downgraded and the confidence level has also dropped quite a bit. 

The reason for this was that Sunday’s swell was initially expected to originate from two sources - a verified 50kt+ fetch off the ice shelf mid-week, which lies in an acute, remote part of our extremely flukey south swell window south of Western Australia. This should generate long period energy - maybe 16-18 seconds across the buoys - but the enormous travel distance and the slight swell shadowing of Tasmania will probably shave off a decent percentage of size. See right for this data as it's interpreted by the wave model (for Coffs Harbour).

The second source of long period south swell was a core fetch around the parent low to the Fri/Sat cold front (the northern extent of which will generate Sunday's initial pulse of S’ly swell). Unfortunately, the latest models have weakened this part of the low so we won’t be seeing any new energy from this region.

As such we’ll be relying exclusively on the long period energy from the ice shelf - which is a bloody hard swell window to have confidence in. We have seen a couple of south swells from this region over the last year perform well above expectations - and with our model estimating 0.8m@ 16.4 seconds around Sunday lunchtime (for Coffs Harbour), we certainly can’t discount the prospects for occasional long lined southerly lines. But I am really not willing to recommend anything as these flukey swells often light up just a handful of beaches at best. And with these odds there’s a fair chance they’ll be all of the beaches you won’t be at.

But. I gotta put something out there so I’ll go with VERY inconsistent 3ft+ sets - perhaps one wave affairs - every fifteen to twenty minutes, at south facing beaches south of Byron Bay. Max size is more likely in the late afternoon than in the morning. And it’ll be super clean with all-day offshores. Yes, it could certainly punch higher than this - but I'm hesitant to estimate much more than this from such a tricky system. Let's be pleasantly surprised if it exceeds the forecast size range.

The only locations north of the border likely to pick up anything from this south swell are a handful of super exposed south swell magnets, and even then prospects aren’t high for anything amazing - so keep your expectations low in SE Qld on Sunday.

Let’s see what happens, eh? 

Next week (Jun 26 onwards)

Sunday's south swell will ease slowly through Monday, with mainly light variable winds. South swell magnets south of Byron should still see some fun waves though it'll probably be smaller and less consistent than what we see on Sunday afternoon. Tiny surf will persist through SE Qld. 

We’ve got another frontal passage through the lower Tasman Sea early next week that should provide some solid waves through Tuesday and Wednesday.

It’s been downgraded a bit since Monday’s update but south facing beaches south of Byron should still pull in some 4ft sets at times. I don’t think we’ll see much surf in SE Qld from this source though, the direction and alignment won't favour anywhere but the region's handful of south swell magnets. 

Beyond that and a similarly strong front is expected through the lower Tasman Sea sometime Thursday which suggests a large south swell rebuilding through Friday, peaking into Saturday and Sunday. More on that in Monday’s update.

Have a great weekend!