South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 3rd September)

Best Days: Protected SE Qld points Tues/Wed for small surf (bigger outer points and open beaches, though with more risk of being wind affected). Early window Thurs AM with light winds ahead of the northerly, and slowly easing swells from the E and SE. Open beaches Sat as winds veer NW with small leftover swells. 

Recap: Saturday offered a fun morning mix of leftover NE and SE swell across exposed coasts, with sets running 2-3ft across parts of Northern NSW and the Southern Gold Coast. Size eased into the afternoon and Sunday was very small to begin with; freshening southerly winds kicked in early and southerly swells built throughout the day across Northern NSW, persisting into this morning though with mainly cross-onshore winds. We’ve seen building local SE swells through Far Northern NSW and SE Qld today as a local trough has developed off the coast. 

This week (Sep 4 - 7)

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There’s a few sources of swell this week. 

Today’s south swell is on the way out, and will be replaced through Tuesday and Wednesday by some sideband energy from the SE, generated by a low off New Zealand’s West Coast.

Although it's a strong, slow moving system, the primary fetch is poorly aimed within our swell window. However, I still think there's enough energy to contribute occasional sets between 3ft and maybe 5ft at exposed south facing beaches south of Byron through Tuesday and Wednesday morning, easing into the afternoon and further into Thursday. Expect much smaller surf elsewhere; this isn't a notable swell event at all.

Closer to the mainland, a developing coastal trough has a nice easterly infeed and this is generating peaky short range energy that’ll build through Tuesday, peak Wednesday and then ease through Thursday. With the trough being positioned off the Capricorn Coast, we’ll see the strongest winds (and thus largest surf) across the Sunshine Coast, plateauing around 4-5ft at open beaches, and smaller size as you head south from here, somewhere around 3-5ft Gold Coast, 3-4ft Far Northern NSW, and down to about 3ft on the Mid North Coast. 

The easterly swell direction will favour plenty of (smaller) energy across the sheltered inner points and this is crucial as they’ll be the only locations offering protection from a predominantly gusty E/SE wind. The Sunshine Coast will see the strongest winds, in fact they won’t be too strong south from the Gold Coast - of which most locations from here south could see brief periods of light variable or even offshore winds through the mornings. It's not a classic swell pattern though so don't be too worried if you can't get wet. 

Thursday’s easing size (from both the SE and E swell sources) will be accompanied by a freshening N/NE breeze that should be light and variable early morning but will become fresh and gusty into the afternoon. 

Friday looks terrible at this stage with strengthening northerlies and a small mix of swells, including a pulse of E/SE swell originating from a fetch of gales exiting western Cook Strait (between NZ’s South and North Island - see below) around Wednesday. 

This weekend (Sep 8 - 9)

The weekend doesn't look particularly flash at this stage with the Southern Ocean storm track aimed away from us. Although the South Pacific will develop an series of impressive systems throughout the forecast period - including a real hum-dinger on Friday (anyone up for a quick North Island strike mission?) - they will unfortunately be tucked inside the swell shadow of New Zealand. 

We should however see small levels of distant trade swell from an enormous high pressure system way out SE of Tahiti (see below) - the fetch is really broad and long but ultimately not strong enough to generate a noteworthy swell event. It should however maintain a lengthy period of small underlying east swell for exposed beaches from about this weekend onwards into early next week. 

The only real source of new swell for Northern NSW and exposed northern ends of SE Qld will be the aforementioned small E/SE fetch exiting western Cook Strait mid-week. This should produce 2-3ft sets at most open beaches, mixed in with small residual swells from other sources. 

Local conditions look tricky as a trough moves up the coast, freshening NW winds on Saturday ahead of a gusty S’ly change on Sunday. We’ll see a windswell increase behind Sunday’s chance but it’ll be locally generated and not of particularly high quality. 

As such, Saturday looks like your best bet with NW winds favouring the open beaches. Let’s fine tune on Wednesday.

Next week (Sep 10 onwards)

Although the major subtropical low developing east of New Zealand later this week is modelled to be well and truly inside its swell shadow (see below), there is certainly a chance that future model updates could shunt it a little further north - which would change the equation for our surf prospects early next week. Let’s check back on Wednesday.