South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 2nd July)

Best Days: Later Tues/Wed/Thurs: fun SE swell for the points. Sat/Sun: fun beachies with an easing trade swell (biggest in SE Qld) and offshore winds. 

Recap: Easing E’ly swells provided some fun waves across SE Qld beaches over the weekend though wave heights were generally small. Size bottomed out today with developing S’ly winds as a small low formed off the Northern NSW coast. 

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This week (July 3 - 6)

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Note: Today’s Forecaster Notes will be brief, as Craig is away on annual leave

There’s been some interesting upgrades in the model guidance for this Far North Coast low over the last few days. However, regardless of core wind strength, it’ll remain close enough to the coast to maintain gusty S tending SE winds across most regions for a day or two. 

Fortunately, the recent upgrade means there’ll be little more size than was noted in Friday’s forecast (which in itself was optimistic against the model guidance) - so we’ll have some good waves running down the outer points. 

Wave heights should build through Tuesday, peak Wednesday and then ease slowly from Thursday onwards. The angle and orientation of the fetch will favour Far Northern NSW for the most size - somewhere around 4-5ft, maybe even 4-6ft at exposed beaches, though wind affected. Expect slightly smaller surf running down its semi-exposed points, with smaller surf inside sheltered southern corners.

This swell will be best suited to the Southern Gold Coast points where we should see 3-4ft surf at the height of the swell through Wednesday, with slightly bigger though wind affected waves at exposed northern ends. Surf size will probably be a touch smaller across the Sunshine Coast, and its sheltered points will be smaller again (remember, there’ll be enough south in the swell direction to significantly impact size across inner points). 

The Mid North Coast will also see strong surf though slightly smaller that Far Northern NSW. However winds will be pretty funky out of the S tending SE (Tues), SE (Wed) N/NE (Thurs) so it’ll be hard to find somewhere offering any quality from day to day. 

Also on our radar this week is a small flush of long period S’ly swell from a polar low currently skirting the Ice Shelf well south of Tasmania (see below). It’s a broad system but moving quickly through our swell window and the large travel distance will erode a considerable percentage of size by the time it make landfall. 

The leading edge of this swell should reach Southern NSW during Thursday and the Mid North Coast may pick up a few late lines that afternoon. Friday is a better bet though, with surf size building into the 2-3ft range at south swell magnets south of Byron - though given core wind strengths of 50kts+, reliable swell magnets could see more size than this (I'm reluctant to commit to a size). 

However this swell will be extremely inconsistent and will only favour a handful of breaks. With freshening N’ly winds across the Northern NSW coast you’ll have to tuck into a sheltered corner.

SE Qld will see the northerly flow into Friday though it won’t be quite as strong. This is a shame too as we’ll see a reinforcing trade swell build throughout late Thursday and into Friday as the SE swell from the trough/low disappears. This trade swell will be sourced from a strengthening ridge south of New Caledonia around Wednesday and should provide 3-4ft waves to exposed locations. However local winds may create some problems for the points. 

This weekend (July 7 - 8)

Looks like a great weekend for the beachies. A series of strong winter fronts across the southern states will swing the wind to the NW on Saturday, then SW on Sunday. 

Friday’s infrequent long period S’ly swell will ease steadily through Saturday, and our most recent trade swell will also trend down, though more slowly. Wave heights will therefore be biggest across SE Qld (3-4ft easing to 2-3ft Saturday, smaller into Sunday). South from Ballina, expect less size form this source. 

As such Saturday looks like the pick of the weekend. More on this in Wednesday’s update. 

Next week (Just 9 onwards)

A very active phase of the Long Wave Trough is impacting WA at the moment, and it’s expected to slide through SA and Vic’s swell windows later this week. 

It’ll eventually push across Tasmanian longitudes later this weekend, so we’re potentially looking at a series of large southerly groundswells across Northern NSW throughout next week. More on this in Wednesday’s update.