South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 17th July)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: large windy south swell in Northern NSW, but only small in SE Qld. Sat/Sun: large clean SE groundswell for Northern NSW, with light offshores. Plenty of fun waves in SE Qld too.

Recap: Saturday saw a small easing S/SE swell across the coast, tiny in SE Qld but with some early sets across Northern NSW. Sunday and Monday were tiny with residual energy across open beaches. 

This week (July 18th - 21st)

Most of Northern NSW won’t see any new swell for the next few days.

SE Qld and the Far Northern NSW Coast may however pick up a small few waves from a minor E/NE swell, generated by a small E’ly fetch on top of a high located north of New Zealand. Winds weren’t very strong and the fetch wasn’t very long nor positioned close to the coast but exposed beaches may pick up slow 1-2ft sets at times. Otherwise it'll be tiny to flat. 

A small local N’ly windswell is also possible across the Gold and Tweed Coast on Tuesday as a pre-frontal airstream strengthens across the coastal margin. However it’s unlikely that there’ll be much size in it. These northerlies will give way to gusty W/SW winds on Wednesday. Expect tiny conditions to persist pretty much everywhere else. 

The second half of the week looks much different. 

A complex, deep low pressure system will cross the Tasmanian region on Tuesday, with associated cold fronts responsible for our westerly change. They’ll eventually enter our south swell window on Wednesday morning but it’ll be an acute angle and we won’t see any size before the sun goes down. 

Overnight Wednesday we’ll start to see a new S/SW swell build across Northern NSW, originating from a SW tending S/SW fetch that’ll encompass the entire East Coast from SE of Tasmania to the Capricorn Coast in Central Queensland. That’s one heck of a spatial coverage - almost all of which will be aimed away from the coast (at least partially, anyway). 

This system will display several individual fetches, and will correspondingly deliver a couple of strong short and mid range pulses of south swell for the rest of the week.  To be honest, it’s hard to pick the precise trend of each for now so it’s probably best to blanket both Thursday and Friday with a size range, and expect some elasticity within each day as each swell ebbs and flows. 

Thursday looks like it’ll be the smaller of the two, building to 4-5ft at south facing beaches (south of Byron), though very steep in its southerly direction - so considerably smaller elsewhere (even more so than what we usually see under south swells) - protected southern corners may only be a foot or so. Winds should remain W/SW for much of the day.

Friday should deliver a little more size (peaking around 4-6ft south facing beaches south of Byron) thanks to a strong secondary fetch wrapping around the Tasman Low, but the swell direction should be a little more south. As such, protected locations should - by comparison to Thursday - see a little more size, but it'll still be quite small thanks to the acute southerly swell direction.

However, Friday will be at risk of early W/SW winds tending S/SW as the front pushes up the coast. So only protected locations will offer clean conditions.

Across SE Qld, I’m not expecting much size from Thursday’s swell - just a foot of weak waves across the outer points, perhaps some late 2-3ft sets at exposed northern ends (which could be OK if the wind holds W/SW). A little more size is expected throughout Friday though it’ll probably be a brief peak, and sets will be very inconsistent owing to the unfavourable fetch alignment. Stray, very inconsistent one-wave 2ft sets are possible at the outer points, up to 3-4ft at exposed northern ends though I wouldn’t be surprised if much of the day comes in smaller than this (especially on the Sunny Coast.. I don’t think we’ll see much here at all). 

We’ll also see early W/SW winds in SE Qld swinging S/SE during the day too, which further complicates the outlook.

Anyway, let’s take a closer look on Wednesday with the availability of more data.

This weekend (July 22nd - 23rd)

The low responsible for our Thurs/Fri swell will move towards New Zealand on Thursday and will reintensify into Friday, with gale to storm force S’ly winds generating a sideband SE swell for the NSW coast. 

This is due to arrive on Saturday lunchtime across the Mid North Coast, and mid afternoon across Far Northern NSW and a little later across SE Qld, peaking overnight before easing throughout Sunday.

We’ll start the day with smaller leftovers from Friday’s short/mid range S’ly swell, ahead of a peak late afternoon. Northern NSW’s south facing beaches (south of Byron) will see the most size, with solid 6-8ft sets right on dark. Expect smaller surf at beaches with less southerly exposure.  Sunday will then ease from 6ft+ to 3-5ft at south facing beaches throughout the day. 

Across SE Qld, we should see a window of good waves very late Saturday and early Sunday, around 2-3ft across the outer points and bigger near 3-5ft at exposed northern ends.

The best news is that winds are expected to ease rapidly and tend light W’ly as a high pressure system moves in from the west - so we’re looking at clean conditions everywhere.

Let’s fine tune the specifics on Wednesday. 

Next week (July 24th onwards)

Nothing major showing up in the long range charts at this stage. But with a great weekend ahead, it’s hardly an issue right now.