South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 24th October)

Best Days: Mon/Tues: decent south swell for Northern NSW (small in SE Qld) with good winds through the mornings. 

Recap: Wave heights boosted a little out of the east into Thursday, and a southerly swell also added more size across Northern NSW, with sets in anywhere between 2ft and 3ft waves at most exposed beaches. Conditions were generally OK with light to moderate winds. Surf size ease from both sources today and winds freshened from the north across SE Qld, though as expected we saw light variable winds for most of the morning ahead of a southerly change that reached Coffs Harbour around 9am and Byron Bay around 3pm.

Fun E'ly swell in Coffs on Thursday

Plenty of E'ly lines at D'Bah on Thursday

Small residual south swell in Coffs Harbour this morning

This weekend (Oct 27 - 28)

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It’s not a great weekend for surfers. 

There’s not much of a fetch trailing today’s southerly change so Saturday’s looking pretty ordinary, with small residual swells across all coasts and light variable winds and afternoon sea breezes. 

Sunday looks equally small and average, with the only difference being a gusty southerly change associated with a vigorous cold front that’ll accelerate through the lower Tasman Sea on Saturday. It’s expected to reach Port Macquarie close to dawn, and Byron Bay late morning, then the Sunshine Coast mid afternoon.

Strong winds trailing the front (and a decent parent low in the Tasman) will generate a rapid increase in southerly swell, though the groundswell component won’t arrive until overnight Sunday, so the afternoon will most likely see building windswells that’ll be heavily wind affected. I don't think we'll see much of an increase north of the border either (at least across the points, which'll offer the only shelter from the southerly breeze).

More southern locations (i.e. south from Coffs) will see the wavelength draw out earlier, so there’s a chance for protected southern ends and semi-exposed points late in the day but it’s probably not worth getting excited about.

Ahead of the change, more northern locations will see early NW winds and small residual surf. Make sure you’ve got something with a lot of foam!

Next week (Oct 30 onwards)

Sunday’s southerly change will be linked in with a reasonable low in the Tasman Sea, and a series of secondary fronts trailing behind will also provide useful south swell through the first half of next week. 

Monday will see a peak in size across south facing beaches south of Byron with sets around 4-5ft, though it’ll be smaller at beaches with less southerly exposure. Local conditions are looking very good too, under the influence of a slow moving high pressure system that’ll result in light variable winds and afternoon sea breezes. 

North of the border into SE Qld, and we’ll see much less size from this south swell due to the swell direction, and a weak ridge across the coast will maintain moderate SE winds (mainly the Sunshine Coast, though the northern Gold Coast is also likely to see this influence). Early periods of SW winds (mainly southern Gold Coast) will create locally clean conditions but with just very inconsistent 1.5-2ft+ surf across the outer points, you’ll be best off heading to exposed northern ends where sets should push 3ft+ at times. 

Successive southerly swells through Tuesday and Wednesday will be of similar quality and inconsistent, but smaller in size. So, although Tuesday morning may retain most of Monday’s size, it’ll drop into the afternoon; expect wave heights to ease by around half to one foot each day (with a slightly smaller decrease in SE Qld). 

Tuesday’s winds look favourable for the early session but we’ll see freshening NE breezes into the afternoon, ahead of a full day of moderate to fresh northerly winds on Wednesday (lighter in the north). 

As such, maker the most of Monday and Tuesday - they are by far the pick of the forecast period. 

Looking further ahead, northerly winds are expected to hold steady through the rest of the week and next weekend too. 

As for surf, a building ridge through a Coral Sea from the middle of next week onwards should generate some small E/NE trade swell for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW through the end of the week and next weekend. 

Elsewhere, a series of fronts below Tasmania mid-next week will kick up some more small to moderate southerly swell for Northern NSW for the same time frame (very little for SE Qld), whilst an unstable synoptic period down south associated with a broad troughy pattern still has the potential to spin up a significant swell generating system off the Southern NSW Coast. There’s nothing of any great interest in the model data right now but most of the ingredients are certainly there.

More on this in Monday’s update. Have a great weekend!