South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 10th July)

Best Days: Tues: small south swell with early offshores, south of Byron. Thurs: small south swell south of Byron, with light winds. Surf building into the a'noon. Fri/Sat AM: fun S/SE swell with offshore winds, best suited to Northern NSW or exposed northern ends of Gold/Sushine Coasts. 

Recap: Plenty of good waves across all coasts on Saturday with an easing long range easterly groundswell around 2-3ft, and some leftover south swell across Northern NSW. Surf size eased to 1-2ft on Sunday, and both days were clean with offshore winds across the beaches. Today the east swell is pretty much gone but a small south swell is providing rideable waves to south facing beaches south of Byron Bay. 

This week (July 11th - 14th)

We’ve got an extended period of small conditions for SE Qld. So, if you’re north of the border you’d better prepare for some road mileage if you are looking for any appreciable size. Even then, you may be disappointed.

South from Byron, we have a couple of south swells on the way for the rest of the week.

A continuing fetch of strong to gale force W/SW winds exiting eastern Bass Strait (the same region responsible for today’s minor south swell) has been strengthened since Friday’s model runs, and is generating a slightly bigger round of south swell that will fill into Southern NSW late today, and should reach Northern NSW into Tuesday. It won’t offer any major size but south facing beaches should pick up a few 2ft+ sets, with tiny surf elsewhere.

A front will push up the east coast at the same time, and apart from a few hours of early W/SW winds, we’ll see a S/SW tending S’ly airstream throughout mid-late morning and into the afternoon. So, aim for the early session for the best waves. Don’t get your hopes very high though, it’ll be a flukey, directional south swell and will really only light up the reliable south swell magnets. 

Lingering southerly winds into Wednesday morning will probably maintain below average condition at exposed south facing beaches. A gradual shift to the SW along with a weakening trend should slowly improve conditions but with the only swell energy holding from the southern quadrant, this is not a great combo for mid week surfers. 

That being said, we will see a second, longer lasting south swell fill in through Wednesday (morning across the Mid North Coast, afternoon across the Far North Coast), holding into Thursday, generated by a stronger procession of fronts and lows well south of Tasmania yesterday. This should see south facing beaches building back up into the 2-3ft range. Wednesday morning will also see a similar level of short range southerly windswell generated by Tuesday’s change. It won’t be very high in quality though.

Thursday will probably see the next best day of surf with this small persistent southerly groundswell accompanied by light variable winds. Exposed northern ends may see a small leftover wobble through the lineup but by and large winds will be very light.

And just quickly - most locations in SE Qld won’t see much more than a lazy foot at best from this small procession of south swells (later Wed/Thurs). Exposed northern ends may pick up slow 2ft sets but it won’t be worth too much attention. 

As for the new SE groundswell expected during the latter part of this week - unfortunately it has been downgraded. A front pushing through the south-eastern Tasman Sea later Tuesday has been weakened, and the low forming off New Zealand's West Coast won’t be quite as strong. Our model is only calling 2ft surf from this system (late Thurs/Fri) but I think this is rather pessimistic - we should see a new S/SE swell filling in on Thursday afternoon (peaking Friday) around the 3ft+ range across open south facing beaches south of Byron (smaller elsewhere), with occasional 1-2ft sets across the outer SE Qld points, and 2ft+ across exposed northern ends of the Gold and Sunshine Coasts. 

Light to moderate NW winds will keep conditions clean to finish the week. 

This weekend (July 15th - 16th)

Not a lot expected this weekend. Friday’s S/SE swell will ease into Saturday so you’ll need to aim for the early session for the most size - perhaps some 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches south of Byron, and 1-2ft sets at exposed northern ends of the Gold and Sunshine Coast (much smaller everywhere else). Winds will be out of the west so it’ll be clean. Expect smaller surf into the afternoon.

A low developing east of Tasmania overnight Friday looks like it’ll slip away to the south-east, which will reduce its swell generating potential (for Northern NSW, that is - SE Qld rarely sees surf from these kinds of systems). 

However, strong W/SW winds exiting eastern Bass Strait plus a brief fetch of southerly gales around the low itself should generate some fresh south swell for Sunday afternoon. Let’s peg size around the 2-3ft range at south facing beaches across the Mid North Coast - in fact we may not see this swell reach the Far North Coast until very late in the day. It’ll also be much smaller elsewhere (and tiny across SE Qld). 

As such, Sunday morning will see smaller surf between swells. Winds should be favourable for all coasts though.

Next week (July 17th onwards)

Nothing major on the cards for next week at this stage. Let’s see if Wednesday has any advance clues.