South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 5th September)

Best Days: Thurs: get in early before the NE wind develops. Sat: small clean beachies with morning NW winds. 

Recap: There’s been no shortage of trade swell over the last few days plus a stack of SE swell across northern NSW from a fetch positioned off New Zealand earlier this week. However, winds have been a problem for exposed locations. That being said, we have seen S’ly periods at times and this has favoured the outer points. Size has been generally in the 3-4ft range with occasional bigger sets at exposed locations in Northern NSW.

Take a close look: there's quite a lot happening in this random still from Currumbin this morning

This week (Sep 6 - 7)

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Make the most of Thursday morning.

We’re now past the peak of both the SE and trade swell events, and early Thursday is the only window of opportunity in the short term where we’ll see light winds. A large high in the Tasman Sea and an approaching trough of low pressure from the south will strengthen NE winds through Thursday afternoon, tending straight northerly into Friday and gaining an appreciable amount of strength - enough to bump up all but the most protected northern corners to finish the week.

Thursday should still see 2-3ft surf at most open beaches (from both sources). Although the trade swell will ease steadily into the afternoon and Friday, we’ll see a reinforcing SE swell building across Northern NSW during the day, generated by a small but punchy fetch exiting western Cook Strait today (between New Zealand’s South and North Islands). 

This should rebuild wave heights back up into the 2-3ft+ range by the afternoon, though set waves will be very inconsistent and you’ll have to find a sheltered corner for the cleanest conditions. There’s an outside chance for a period of early N/NW winds in some regions on Friday morning but I wouldn’t hold your breath. 

Friday's new SE swell will lose some size as it bends into SE Qld, though it’s a moot point anyway with the northerlies. 

This weekend (Sep 8 - 9)

Looks like a tricky weekend ahead.

The trough approaching from the south is expected to stall off the Mid North Coast into Saturday, and there’s been a few curveball upgrades in the latest model runs - which, if the trend continues - will end up delivering a punchy round of local swell and problematic winds for the first half of the weekend somewhere across the NSW coast (most likely Sydney region thru’ Mid North Coast). 

As such, we can only paint broad brush stroked for now, as local winds will dictate your surf prospects quite a bit. In any case there’ll be some underlying E/SE groundswell both days throughout Northern NSW (same source as per Friday evening; exiting western Cook Strait) with occasional sets around 2-3ft+. 

At this stage, the most likely wind outcome (given the divergent model guidance) will be freshening NW winds across all coasts Saturday, tending S’ly at some point through Saturday afternoon (Mid North Coast) and Sunday (elsewhere).

The big unknown right now is whether this evolving trough for Saturday will develop into a more significant swell generating system (I’m banking it will) for Sunday. The image below shows GFS which is currently progging a rather mild event, and I expect this to be upgraded/intensified over the coming days as we draw closer to the weekend.

As a side note, I'm also expecting the weekend to show the early signs of some small distant trade swell from an enormous high pressure system way out SE of Tahiti - 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 the first half of next week. 

Next week (Sep 10 onwards)

A series of modest fronts pushing into the lower Tasman Sea on Sunday should generate some small south swell for early next week. A series of much more aggressive fronts and lows in the Southern Ocean are then expected to generate larger southerly swells for the NSW coast through the latter part of next week and the following weekend.

More on this in Friday’s update.