South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 6th February)

Best Days: No shortage of E'ly swell for the entire period, building over the next few days, easing through the weekend and then punching strongly next week with some South Pacific groundswell. 

Recap: E’ly swells have maintained inconsistent 3ft+ surf across exposed SE old and Far Northern NSW coasts, with smaller surf along the points and also south from Yamba. Winds have been generally moderate onshore, though there have been pockets of lighter winds at times. There’s been a few other minor swell sources in the mix though nothing of any great value. 

This week (Feb 7 - 8)

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

(apologies for the crap FC Notes title too.. in a rush, run out of adjectives and analogies, yada yada)

There are no changes to the short term forecast period.

A broad trade flow through the Northern Tasman and Lower Coral Seas is muscling up, and this will gradually build E’ly swells across all coasts for the next few days. 

Surf size will be biggest across open beaches in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, where we should see size pushing 3-5ft at most exposed spots by Friday (smaller prior to this). Expect smaller waves running down the points, and also south of about Yamba. 

Moderate onshore winds are expected across all coasts Thursday and the Mid North Coast on Friday, with only isolated pockets of light variable winds. However, a slow retreat of the Coral Sea ridge to the north-east on Friday should bring about light variable winds north from Yamba throughout into SE Qld. There’s still a risk of an early moderate E’ly breezes on the Sunshine Coast in the morning, but it’ll abate throughout the day. 

This weekend (Feb 9 - 10)

We’ve got some fun waves ahead this weekend. 

The trades across the Northern Tasman are expected to briefly pull back in strength on Friday, which will case wave heights to dip slowly over the weekend,. There’ll be plenty of size though, still 3-5ft across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW on Saturday morning, easing to 3ft+ by Sunday morning. Expect slightly smaller surf south from Yamba. 

The South Pacific will strengthen a new fetch N/NE of New Zealand into Thursday and Friday, and this will bring about a fresh pulse of slightly stronger but less consistent E’ly swell that’ll fill in the mix on Sunday afternoon. This should arrest the easing trend and may (mid-late Sunday afternoon) push surf size back up into the 3-5ft range at most coasts across Northern NSW and SE Qld to complete the day. However, expect a period of smaller waves in the morning. 

As for winds, Saturday is at risk of freshening N'ly winds, mainly south from Ballina, as a shallow southerly change advances along the Southern NSW coast.

At this stage, locations north from Ballina through into SE Qld will probably only see a deterioration in conditions from early afternoon onwards, but south from Ballina it could kick in at any time in the morning. 

The southerly change will stall across the lower Mid North Coast overnight, and bring about a period of light variable winds for Sunday. As such we’ll see reasonably good conditions at most coasts to finish the weekend.  

Next week (Feb 11 onwards)

The South Pacific is really going to become quite active over the coming days, and New Zealand is in for one hell of a good run of large N, NE and E’ly swell over the coming week and a half. 

The source of this swell will be the merging of a series of tropical lows (and possible cyclones) between Samoa and New Zealand’s North Island, though they won’t be ideally consolidated at all (see chart below). As such, despite looking amazing on the synoptic chart, potential wave heights are likely to be considerably smaller compared to what we'd expect from a broad, consolidated, slow moving system of about the same size.

Worse, these systems will eventually consolidate nicely - but only once they’ve pushed south of the New Zealand swell shadow. 

Prior to then, we’ll see good E’ly groundswell generated by two or three primary fetches, which’ll push through to the NSW coast at various stages between Monday and Friday. Current expectations are that Tuesday, Wednesday and possibly even Thursday will see the most size: background energy should maintain 3-5ft surf throughout the entire week, but I still think we’ll see one or possibly two rounds of long period energy up into the 5-6ft range, albeit rather inconsistent (and as always, smaller at protected spots).

Long range charts suggest we’ll see an ongoing though intermittent supply of long range E'ly swell for some time beyond the end of the week too.

Lastly, a deep cut-off low is expected to cross the Tasmanian divide around Wednesday and could generate a large S’ly swell for some arts of the NSW Coast (more likely southern than northern) during the second half of the week.

Exciting, innit?

More on this in Friday’s notes.