South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 25th August)

Best Days: Sun: keep an eye out for a new long period S'ly groundswell in Northern NSW into the afternoon. Mon: combo of S'ly swells in Northern NSW with tricky winds (better conditions for SE Qld, though not much size). Tues: solid S'ly swell in Northern NSW, small waves on the SE Qld outer points. Wed onwards: easing S'ly swell and asmall E'ly swell holding through into the weekend.

Recap: Easing S/SE swells and light NW winds early Thursday preceded a freshening N’ly breeze ahead of a late S’ly change (and some tidy afternoon thunderstorms) - the change reached Coffs Harbour just before 10am, but slowed in its northward track, not reaching Byron Bay until another ten hours later (around 8pm). Today we’ve seen small but building S’ly wind swells, with the Mid North Coast now pushing 4ft (stoked to see the Gallows cam back online!) with tiny peelers across the outer Gold Coast points. 

Choppy arvo southerly swell at our finally-back-online Gallows (Coffs) surfcam

Small arvo peelers at Snapper Rocks

This weekend (August 26th - 27th)

Not a lot to get excited about this weekend. Though late Sunday has potential down south.

The current short range S’ly swell will peak overnight tonight, and then trend down through Saturday morning. South facing beaches south of Byron will see the most size - early 3-5ft sets though choppy with fresh lingering S’ly breeze, possibly SW for a period early morning. Beaches will less southerly exposure will be much smaller. 

North of the border, it’ll be clean across the points but there won’t be enough size or strength in the swell to warrant any major attention. We may see some stray 1-2ft sets at the outer points but it’ll ease throughout the day. Exposed northern end of the Gold Coast will be wind affected, but larger near 2-3ft+ (expect smaller surf on the Sunny Coast). Smaller surf is expected into the afternoon. 

Sunday morning will kick off with small residual S’ly swell from Saturday, and much cleaner conditions under a light W/NW breeze. There’ll be a few small fun peaky waves at exposed beaches south of the border, but nothing to get terribly excited about. Expect very small surf across SE Qld.

However, as mentioned on Wednesday we have an unusual source of long period S’ly groundswell that’s generated a new event that will fill in throughout the afternoon across the Mid North Coast, and possibly Far Northern NSW very late in the day if we’re lucky. The system responsible for this swell displayed a broad region of gale to storm force SW winds in a rare part of our acute south swell window in the Southern Ocean mid-week, well SW of Tasmania. 

As per the model guidance, our Coffs Harbour data point (see right) is forecasting 0.4m @ 17.5 seconds around noon Sunday (bigger by 6pm) but I think the size of the swell train will be much larger, closer to a metre. As such my surf prediction is much higher than the model guidance is estimating. 

However, these kinds of flukey long range southerly groundswells usually just glance the coast, providing very large differences in surf size across the East Coast. So, having confidence on the size is hard, as is having confidence on its timing. The only thing we can be sure of is that locations further south have a grater chance of seeing this new swell on Sunday, as its arrival time further north could push too close to dark.

But, I’m not one to sit on the fence. So, my take is that south facing beaches will see a mid-afternoon pulse towards 3-4ft across the Mid North Coast, with bigger 4-6ft bombs at a handful of reliable swell magnets late in the day.

For the most part, most Northern NSW beaches will be considerably smaller (due to the swell direction, and/or a late arrival time), and across SE Qld I’m not expecting this swell to make much of an impact at all - perhaps a few late lines at south swell magnets if we’re lucky, but more likely Monday.

Next week (Aug 28th onwards)

Next week has thrown a curveball with a strong new Tasman Low expected to dominate the SW Tasman Sea for a couple of days. There’s still lot of uncertainty in the forecast as I’ll update over the weekend as new data comes to hand. 

At this stage, Monday is looking for a continuation of the same long period groundswell as per late Sunday (models have 0.5m at 15.8 seconds early Monday), so we’re looking at 3-4ft sets at most south facing beaches in Northern NSW - though infrequent - with a handful of reliable swell magnets picking up occasional 4-6ft bombs. This is quite a considerable outlook given the flukey source of the swell but the satellite passes have come in with good data so I’m reasonably confident.

Also in the mix will be some short range S’ly swell from a strong front pushing into the Lower Tasman Sea late Sunday. This should be worth 3-4ft at south swell magnets. Beaches will less southerly exposure will be considerably smaller though.

Local winds do look dicey though thanks to the developing Tasman Low east of Southern NSW around the same time. This will drive SW through S’ly winds across the Northern NSW, bumping up exposed spots in Northern NSW.  As such protected locations will be your best bet here (expect slow, inconsistent, smaller, waves here). 

SE Qld won’t pick up much of Monday’s two south swells - conditions will be best across the points but they’ll be small and inconsistent (1-2ft) whilst exposed northern ends could see fun though very infrequent 3ft+ sets (smaller on the Sunny Coast). Winds should be lighter north of the border though so the beaches stand a better chance here than in Northern NSW.

The Tasman Low is expected to generate a large S’ly swell for Northern NSW on Tuesday. I’m not totally confident on size but south facing beaches south of Byron should see wind affected 6ft+ sets with smaller waves elsewhere.  Due to the origin of the swell and the swell direction, surf size will be considerably smaller in SE Qld, just a couple of inconsistent feet on the outer points though stronger 3-4ft sets across exposed northern ends (again, a little smaller on the Sunny Coast).

A small E’ly swell will fill in beneath the mix throughout this time frame but I am doubtful you’ll notice it amongst the southerly noise in Northern NSW - but it should provide a broad spread of 2ft+ surf across SE Qld beaches. 

Additionally, a stationary E/NE fetch NE of New Zealand for much of the week should generate small levels of background E’ly swell right through until next weekend and beyond, though without any great size. 

The only other feature standing out in the long term is a modest front into the lower Tasman Sea later Wednesday that’ll kick up a new S’ly swell for Friday (3-4ft sets) in Northern NSW, of which the long range model guidance is suggesting this front may develop into a Tasman Low off the West Coast of New Zealand’s West Coast later next week, which could be a SE swell source for the following weekend and beyond. More on this in Monday’s update.