South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 9th October)

Best Days: Tues: early light winds in the north (ahead of a S'ly change) and fun easing SE swell. Only small in SE Qld. Sun onwards: steadily building E'ly swell, potentially becoming sizeable around Tuesday though winds look tricky.  

Recap: Saturday didn’t offer anything amazing, with mainly small residual swells early ahead of a building S’ly swell into the afternoon. This provided fun surf through Sunday in the 4ft range south of Byron, but wave heights were very small across SE Qld. A stronger SE groundswell has pushed in across the region today with solid 4-5ft sets at south facing beaches south of Byron, and early light NW winds freshening from the north. This swell has reached SE Qld though was mainly confined to south facing beaches and northern corners on the Gold Coast with sets around 3ft; the outer points didn’t get a look-in and freshening NW winds have rendered these points quite bumpy. Surf size has been a little smaller across the Sunny Coast and local winds haven’t been favourable here unfortunately. 

D'Bah as the new SE swell hit this morning

This week (Oct 10 - Oct 13)

An approaching trough moving up the Northern NSW coast will bring an early S’ly change to the Mid North Coast on Tuesday, probably reaching the border a little after mid-morning and then tending S/SE through SE Qld and S’ly across Northern NSW into the afternoon. 

Prior to its arrival, winds will be light out of the W/NW, providing clean conditions at open beaches, mainly northern ends. 

Today's SE groundswell has already peaked and will ease overnight but early morning may still see some leftover 3ft+ sets at south swell magnets south of Byron. Elsewhere will be much smaller due to the direction. I am doubtful that we’ll see any appreciable N’ly windswell from today’s flow. 

Across SE Qld, we’ll see smaller surf - maybe 2ft or even 2-3ft at exposed northern ends around dawn, but very inconsistent, and easing to 1-2ft during the day (probably by lunchtime). Expect much smaller surf across the outer points, which will be largely swallowed up by the advancing morning high tide anyway. Expect smaller surf on the Sunshine Coast too. 

The southerly change won’t bring any new swell either, so the afternoon’s surf potential looks limited, as the outer points will be very small (though very clean under the southerly). 

Tuesday will also see a small southerly swell push up the Northern NSW coast, though it’ll be smaller than the pre-existing SE swell. It will have originated from a small fetch of SW gales exiting eastern Bass Strait tonight.

Wednesday looks very ordinary as both the S’ly and SE swells bottom right out, and early light winds swing into a fresh NE (Mid North Coast) through N’ly breeze (Far Northern NSW, SE Qld) as a strong high pressure system in the Tasman Sea drives a ridge along the coastal margin. 

This fetch will generate a small NE windswell for Thursday though the most size will be found on the Lower Mid North Coast - maybe some 2-3ft sets - but quality won’t be high. Expect smaller surf size with increasing northerly latitude.

Local winds will slowly abate into Thursday but it’ll remain out of the northern quadrant all day ahead of a late shallow S’ly change on the Mid North Coast. Winds should become light and variable here through the middle of the day too. So, there’s a chance for a small window of opportunity but it’s not worth getting excited about. 

In general, Thursday looks pretty average elsewhere.

A strong front crossing the Southern NSW coast early Thursday will weaken as it tracks north, but its impact in Northern NSW and SE Qld on Friday is as yet unclear. It looks like a weak trough will linger off the Far North Coast which will probably result in light variable winds in most areas, but a moderate E’ly flow can’t be discounted somewhere - probably the Mid North Coast through to about Yamba. I’ll have to reassess this on Wednesday.

In any case, Friday will also se a small new S’ly swell push up the Northern NSW coast, generated by W/SW gales trailing Thursday’s front (exiting eastern Bass Strait). This should provide 2-3ft sets to south facing beaches south of Byron, but we won’t see much surf anywhere else due to the swell direction. 

This weekend (Oct 14 - Oct 15)

The weekend looks very complex, but there is some potential for reasonable surf in a few locations. 

Friday’s south swell will disappear into Saturday, to be replaced by two new pulses of long range S’ly swell over the course of the weekend - generated by a broad, strong Southern Ocean front and low passing south of Tasmania on Thursday night. It won’t be very well aligned within our swell window, but the strength and breadth of the associated fetch should override some of the directional deficiencies. 

As such we should see a couple of small, long period S’ly swells reaching 2-3ft range at south facing beaches south of Byron both days. I'll try to get a better grip on the precise arrival times later this week.

The biggest complexity this weekend is however related to the local synoptics. The coastal trough forecast to linger off Northern NSW on Friday is expected to hang around and slowly strengthen, as a second region of swell generation - a broad ridge of high pressure through the South Pacific - muscles up the trades south of Fiji. 

Initially, these trades probably won’t contribute any new swell to the region until Sunday (and even then it’ll be short range energy, with accompanying onshores) so Saturday will see more potential from the local trough. 

But, current models guidance suggests it’ll be focused across the Lower Mid North Coast, with only a short fetch length - which means we may not see much of a spread north from about Coffs or Yamba. And locations picking up the size may also be onshore (under this scenario, winds would be light and variable in Far Northern NSW and SE Qld).

So, depending on your location, Saturday looks either small with light winds, or building energy with onshores. Not a great selection.

Sunday is modelled to see the ridge of high pressure extend its influence to the Australian East Coast. This will broaden and strengthen the easterly flow and will subsequently build short range E’ly swells throughout the day. We could see 3-4ft+ or more by the late afternoon (smaller earlier) with a reasonably broad distribution of size between the Sunny Coast and Seal Rocks.

But.. surface conditions will be heavily dictated by the local winds - which they will mainly be moderate to fresh onshore. There will certainly be pockets of isolated variable tending offshore winds, associated with passing storm cells, but these will be tricky to pick in advance. However through the week we’ll start to have a better understanding as to where they might be located. 

In any case, if you’re up for a weekend paddle it looks like Sunday across the regional points will be your best bet. I’ll fine tune all of the specifics on Wednesday. 

Next week (Oct 16 onwards)

The models have really anchored down this broadscale blocking pattern in the latest runs, suggesting a punchy local E'ly swell building through Monday, Tuesday and even holding into Wednesday - that could reach somewhere around 5-6ft at open beaches at the height of the energy (probably around Tuesday). 

The size doesn’t impress me that much as much as the (modelled) duration - three or four days of solid, if somewhat short range east swell - plus the absence of northerly winds for a few days too. 

What this means is that we should have quite a few days to pick and choose across the points, and more importantly, instead of a one-day wonder where everyone focuses on a brief pulse of swell, we’ll have time for everyone to spread out and have their fill. So by the middle of next week the lineups should start to thin out a little. Here’s hoping, anyway. 

Let’s take another pass at this on Wednesday.