South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 30th April)

Best Days: Wed/Thurs/Fri: small peaky beachies, biggest and best in Northern NSW. Fri/Sat/Sun: chance for a flukey E'ly groundswell, probably just across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW at best. 

Recap: S/SE swells dominated the weekend, coming in sizeable and strong though wind affected across Northern NSW, and offering good waves across the outer SE Qld points up to 3-4ft at times. Surf size eased into today and winds have remained out of the south at strength, confining the best waves to protected spots.

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This week (May 1 - 4) 

The low pressure system in the north-eastern Tasman Sea didn’t behave quite as expected over the weekend, according to ASCAT satellite data anyway. I can’t find much evidence to support Friday’s expectations for a secondary E/SE fetch within our swell window, which was expected to maintain SE swell into tomorrow. 

However, there is and has been a relatively broad, slow moving S/SE fetch lying parallel to New Zealand’s West Coast, and although not ideally aligned within our swell window, will hold steady for the next few days and should therefore generate a small spread of sideband SE energy for our region through the rest of the week.

What we really need is for local winds to ease. This won’t happen on Tuesday, as a firm ridge across the coast will maintain moderate to fresh S’ly tending S/SE winds (possibly SE for brief periods early morning). Lighter winds are however expected across the Mid North Coast. 

By Wednesday we should start to see a much more relaxed pressure gradient, leading to morning offshore winds in most districts - perhaps just excluding the Sunshine Coast at worst - before winds veer moderate S/SE throughout the days. Light variable winds and sea breezes are then expected Thursday and Friday. The only break to this pattern is a freshening N’ly breeze across the Mid North Coast late Thursday and perhaps early Friday as a front clips Southern NSW.  

As for surf size, Tuesday will see the biggest waves with easing energy from today around 4ft across south facing beaches south of Byron, and much smaller surf elsewhere. Unfortunately, those exposed beaches picking up the most size will be bumpy under the accompanying S'ly wind. SE Qld outer points will remain clean, but slow and fat with occasional 2ft sets in and around lengthy periods of smaller surf. Exposed northern ends will be bigger but more wind affected. Expect size to ease throughout the day.

Through Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we’ll be back to the open beaches with wave heights hovering somewhere between 2ft and maybe 2-3ft in Northern NSW, but smaller across SE Qld around 1-2ft at exposed spots. 

The only possible interruption to this is a potential long range E’ly swell from a deep subtropical low well east of New Zealand (and south of Tahiti) today - see chart below. It has an excellent E’ly fetch but is sitting inside the swell shadow of the North Island, which will block a lot of its swell.

However, what is in favour of swell *possibly* making landfall is the fetch's distance from the NZ mainland - this may allow the swell energy to refract and diffract around the North Island. As such, of we're very lucky, some exposed beaches across SE Qld may pick up inconsistent 3ft waves from this source through Friday - if you had to hedge your bets, you’d aim for the Sunshine Coast as it’s the most exposed coast under this synoptic pattern. But I wouldn’t lock in any flexi time for this swell, as it’s a low percentage event and even if it eventuates, will be horribly inconsistent.

This weekend (May 5 - 6)

The weekend’s surf will generally be very flukey and inconsistent. 

If we see anything from this long range E’ly groundswell on Friday, it’ll persist through Saturday before easing on Sunday. So, let’s chalk up the first flukey swell source right there.

The second flukey swell source is a developing trough just north-east of new Zealand over the coming days, which is expected broaden an impressive though poorly aligned S/SE fetch through the South Pacific, aimed towards Vanuatu. We’ll see a spread of E/SE swell off this fetch but it’ll have less than half the size than if it were positioned more favourably in the in northern Tasman Sea. I’ll peg inconsistent 2-3ft sets from this system too, mainly across SE Qld with smaller size south of the border. 

Flukey swell source number three is a series of poorly aligned fronts in the Far Southern Ocean over the coming days that may generate some small long range S’ly swell for Northern NSW over the weekend. Not worth mentioning otherwise though.

And the fourth flukey swell source is another poorly aligned frontal progression across the Tasmanian divide on Friday and Saturday, which may (if the models upgrade) provide a brief flush of acute south swell to south swell magnets south of Byron Bay.

All in all, it looks very flukey. And conditions look average with developing S/SW winds as a small ridge builds across the coast. So, don't get excited for your weekend options just now.

Next week (May 7 onwards)

A stronger cut-off low is expected to form in the Southern Tasman Sea later this weekend, which suggests a strong south swell for Northern NSW early next week. 

See you Wednesday!