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

Best Days: Tues AM: light winds and a small, inconsistent mix of peaky south and east swells. Aim for your favourite swell magnet. 

Recap: Gusty S’ly winds developed across the region on Saturday, though early morning offered a period of clean beachies in SE Qld ahead of its arrival. The afternoon relegated options to the points and other protected locations. Sunday saw smaller surf with early SW winds tending fresh S’ly during the day again, and a much smaller E’ly swell. Today has seen a mainly small combo of east and south swell across the coast, though late afternoon has started to show some sets across SE Qld that could be a small new trade swell expected to arrive today. However, some buoys are also recording a recent increase in peak swell period to 14 seconds, which is much higher than could have been generated from the trades north-east of New Zealand late last week. It certainly could be a late detection of southerly swell (though, this was already showing across the Far Northern NSW coast this morning), but we are seeing set waves - albeit smaller - appearing across the southern Gold Coast points, which lends some credibility to there being new east swell in the mix. Anyway, winds are light so there are some fun waves for the late session.

Late sets at D'Bah, Currumbin and Burleigh

This week (Oct 24 - Oct 27)

It’s a pretty patchy forecast period ahead. 

A developing trough off the Southern NSW coast mid-week will freshen northerlies from late Tuesday through Wednesday and much of Thursday, leading to poor conditions across many coast. We may see a small N’ly windswell develop Thursday as the wind reaches maximum strength, though there won’t be much size or quality in it. 

Friday morning has a chance for a small period of clean peaky leftover N'ly windswell as the trough clears to the east, bringing southerly winds in its wake, but we’ll be lucky to see much more than 1-2ft at exposed swell magnets. 

As such, Tuesday is your best day to capitalise on for surf, namely the early session. The current mix of inconsistent south and east swell should hold into the morning and we’ll see light variable winds up until lunchtime, with NE winds perking up through the afternoon. 

In general most beaches are looking to be on the small side and very inconsistent - from both sources - and the swell trend will ease throughout the day. Expect maximum surf size of around 1.5-2ft at most open beaches, though some swell magnets (i.e. as per this afternoon’s efforts at D’Bah) may see some bigger 2-3ft sets at first. They’ll be the exception rather than the rule though. There'll be long breaks for waves so you will need to be patient - both of these swells were generated a long way from the mainland. 

As for the developing trough and low to our south, and the associated surf potential later this week - unfortunately, model guidance doesn’t like it very much, marginally strengthening a disjointed SE fetch (aimed into Southern NSW) on Thursday before whisking the whole thing to the east on Friday. 

Northern NSW will pick up a brief SE swell from this system on Friday though I’d be surprised to see much more than 2-3ft at south swell magnets south of Byron. Everywhere else be much smaller. And, with gusty southerly winds on hand the protected points will offer the only clean options, and they'll be tiny. 

I will however put it out there that they model guidance still could swing around over the next few days, so let’s take a closer look on Wednesday. 

This weekend (Oct 23 - Oct 24)

A SE fetch around the bottom of the Tasman Low won’t officially dry up until Friday night, which means we should see some kind of lingering SE swell through into the start of the weekend. 

However, it won’t be very large nor very strong and won’t do much north of the border. You’ll have to hit up south swell magnets south of Byron for the most size - early 2-3ft sets easing to 1-2ft during the day. Expect smaller surf throughout SE Qld, so you'll have to hit up exposed northern ends.

Other than that, it looks like northerlies will return for the weekend.

Saturday morning should see a period of light variable winds ahead of freshening N’ly winds into the afternoon, and Sunday looks decidedly uninteresting with small swells and poor conditions.

Next week (Oct 25 onwards)

Our Southern Ocean swell window looks pretty bog standard for next week. We’re likely to see there passage of a few fronts into the southern Tasman Sea, and they’ll invariably kick up some south swell for Northern NSW, but at this stage nothing noteworthy looks like, mainly due to a strong zonal (west-east) flow. 

Of more interest is a small trough modelled NE of New Zealand this weekend, which is currently expected to move slowly to the west. Wind speeds are not very strong at the moment and surf potential is low, but it’s one potential ingredient for a decent setup in our favoured eastern swell window for (say) the middle to latter part of next week. Let’s keep a close eye on this.