South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 26th February)

Best Days: Tues: small waves building across outer SE Qld points. Wed: light winds on the Mid North Coast with some fun SE swell. Thurs: stronger SE swell with OK winds in the north. Fri: may be a window of light winds early. Sat: easing S'ly swell in Northern NSW.  

Recap: Bit of a patchy weekend. Early onshores across all coasts did ease throughout SE Qld late morning and into the afternoon, offering lumpy but workable waves as the short range swell eased. Winds veered more N’ly in NSW, and this persisted across all coasts into Sunday as the swell eased further again. Today we’ve seen tiny leftovers and freshening northerly winds in the north ahead of a fresh southerly change that’s slowly advancing northwards. Winds swing to the south in Coffs around dawn, but didn’t reach any real strength until about lunchtime. The change seems to have stalled across the Northern Rivers (consequently why we’re seeing some lovely cells rolling in off the hinterland); winds have been S’ly at Yamba since early morning, Evans Head around 10:30am, but Byron Bay is still N’ly. 

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This week (Feb 27 - Mar 2)

The trough moving up the coast will push into the Coral Sea on Tuesday, and a ridge muscling up from the south will maintain fresh southerly winds across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW through the next forty eight hours. Winds will ease back across the Mid North Coast into Wednesday, creating reasonably clean conditions south form Yamba mid-week. 

As for surf, we’ll see a solid short range south swell in the wake of today’s change, though the accompanying winds will render most Northern NSW locations quite bumpy. Protected southern corners will be clean but they’ll be small under the prevailing S/SE swell direction. Expect junky 4-6ft sets at south swell magnets south of Byron Tuesday morning, much smaller elsewhere, and easing steadily into the afternoon.

Across SE Qld, winds will be ideal for the points for the next few days but the strong southerly component will severely restrict wave heights. Outer points should see size building to 2ft, maybe 2-3ft (smaller across inner points) throughout Tuesday; exposed northern ends will be bigger with a junky, wind affected 3-4ft offering. Don't get your hopes up for anything amazing. 

In Friday’s notes, I mentioned that an E’ly dip was modelled to form in the central/northern Tasman Sea this week. Well, things have changed: a new low will forming over the coming days, but it’ll be along the existing trough line in the south-eastern Tasman Sea - a major geographical revision to last week’s model runs that expected it to develop in the central/northern Tasman Sea. 

And this has ramifications mainly for SE Qld’s surf potential, because the resulting surf will have more south in direction. 

The initial developments will maintain 3-5ft surf across Northern NSW on Wednesday (with a small size drop across SE Qld, probably 2ft+ outer points). However, a pulse of longer period swell is expected on Thursday, from the core of the low as it develops Tuesday afternoon. This should maintain 4-5ft surf across Northern NSW into Thursday, and the boost in period should allow for a little more size across SE Qld (maybe back to 2-3ft across the outer points, bigger at exposed northern ends). 

Winds look tricky for Thursday with a weak trough over the region, that will probably push a southerly change across the Mid North Coast though we’ll see NW winds ahead of it - so there’s a northerly risk for SE Qld. Doesn’t look to be too strong at this stage. 

To finish the week, we’ll see easing SE swell from Thursday and S’ly winds extending across all regions, without any major groundswell - just some mid range energy trailing the change that will only show any appreciable size at wind affected beaches south of Byron. Depending on the timing of the change we may see an early window of light winds in SE Qld early Friday, and some small leftover beachies. 

This weekend (Mar 2 - 3)

There’s a decent (modelled) fetch trailing Friday’s change but it looks very south in direction. This means the weekend’s surf prospects will be biggest south from Byron, and we’ll need winds to back off a lot in order for surface conditions to be workable. 

At the moment there’s a good chance of this occurring, so let’s peg size mourned 3-4ft at south swell magnets with light winds early Saturday, easing throughout the weekend. It’ll be much smaller in SE Qld. I’ll firm up the specifics on Wednesday.

Next week (Mar 4 onwards)

A tropical low is expected to slide down from the Fijian region over the coming days, but as a very small system (swell potential wise). We may see it develop a more broader structure mid-late week but it doesn’t look very inspiring right now (but, is worth a second look on Wednesday). 

Otherwise, we have a couple of system not he cards for next week - a small coastal trough early in the week, a strengthening ridge through the northern Tasman/Lower CoralSea mid-late week onwards, and some fruity long term developments that are certainly worth a squiz on the 16 day charts.