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

Best Days: Thurs: get in quick before the N'ly picks up. Fri: pockets of good winds in Northern NSW as a southerly change approaches from the south. Light N/NE winds may cause a few issues in SE Qld. Sat/Sun: should be fun waves in most areas, solid in the south, generally good winds for the points.

Recap: The surf’s been super fun over the last few days, with a trade swell producing 2-3ft surf Tuesday and 3ft+ sets today, plus some underlying long period southerly swell across northern NSW too. Winds have been light in the mornings, freshening from the SE Tuesday afternoon and NE this afternoon.

Fun sets at Snapper this morning

This week (Oct 2 - 5)

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Thursday looks pretty ordinary across most coasts with freshening N’ly winds. We’ll see lighter conditions early morning and there won’t be anywhere near as much strength north from Byron (across SE Qld) but even ten knots can be a problem for the points, so you’ll have to tuck into a sheltered northern corner for the best conditions.

As for surf, we’ve got a few sources on the cards. Today's trade swell is on the way out, but it'll be replaced by a slowly building small to moderate E’ly mid range swell from a broad though otherwise unremarkable trough south of New Caledonia over the last few days. Also in the water will be a continuing series of small overlapping long period southerly groundswells generated by an intense progression of fronts and lows below the continent over the last week. Thursday’s northerly winds may also generate some small windswell for Friday.

Although Thursday looks pretty average across the board (except for a brief window early morning), Friday has some potential for Northern NSW.

A developing trough off the Southern NSW Coast is expected to form a closed system during Thursday, possibly a Tasman Low (just an outside chance for an ECL now). However as it’ll be focused into the coast south of Seal Rocks, we’ll see an outflow W’ly tending SW airstream to the north, from Port Macquarie to about Ballina, ahead of S’ly gales encroaching the Lower Mid Coast through the afternoon (up to Port Mac or Coffs by dinner time). 

N’ly tending N/NE winds are likely to persist in SE Qld all day Friday though without any major strength, so there'll be workable options if you're keen. 

The developing trough will strengthen SE winds into the Hunter region into Friday and we’ll see this swell energy spread north through the day though wave heights will become smaller as you head north from Seal Rocks, due to a less favourable alignment. It’s hard to put a size on each coast, but with the Hunter possibly seeing stormy 6-8ft surf, we’re looking at something in the order of 4-6ft across the Lower Mid North Coast throughout Friday, and 3-4ft across the Upper Mid North Coast, and probably not a great deal of size north from here. However local winds will render all but the most sheltered locations very bumpy.

This weekend (Oct 6 - 7)

Jeez, it’s a tricky weekend to forecast for. 

Friday’s low-of-some-description will meander off the Mid North Coast into Saturday but may weaken and/or retreat at some point, mainly influencing Southern NSW with fresh southerly winds. 

Whilst the specifics are not very clear at this point in time, the most likely outcome for our region is moderate to fresh southerlies across the Mid North Coast, with lighter SW tending S’ly winds across the Far North, and then variable conditions north of the border. 

As for surf, swell won’t be in short supply. We’re likely to see continuing mid-range E’ly swell from Friday in the 3ft+ range across most coasts, some small underlying long period S’ly groundswell, and then a spread of SE swell from the low in the Tasman - biggest across the Lower Mid North Coast with 4-6ft sets, but becoming smaller as you track north along the coast (very little influence is expected north from Yamba or Ballina). 

Anyway, I’m not particularly confident in the size estimates right now but local conditions look fun for some small runners on the outer points in most areas, with solid sets down south. Let’s refine things on Friday. 

Next week (Oct 8 onwards)

Model guidance is still too divergent for any confidence in the long term outlook, however the broad picture suggests a weakening influence in the Tasman from the weekend’s system, followed by a resurgence from the south early-mid-next week that could deliver a sizeable southerly groundswell. More on this in Friday’s update.