South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 29th March)

Best Days: Sat: chance for a small beachie session at northern corners once winds veer N/NW. Sun: keep an eye out for a late pulse of strong S'ly swell (Mid North Coast). Mon: strong S'ly swell in Northern NSW, small in SE Qld. Tues onwards: building combo of E'ly swells (peaking Wed/Thurs) with fresh S/SE winds, ideal for outer points. 

Recap: Peaky E/SE swells produced 3-4ft sets across exposed beaches in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW on Thursday, easing a little today. Thursday also saw a S’ly groundswell produce 3-5ft sets at south swell magnets south of Byron. Winds have been generally S/SE with low wave quality away from protected locations, which have seen smaller surf.

Peaky E'ly swell at D'Bah Thurs morning

S'ly groundswell at Coffs Thurs arvo

This weekend (Mar 30 - 31)

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

Small swells and freshening northerly winds will create problems on Saturday.

Winds should be light early morning throughout Far Northern NSW and SE Qld, and we may see a slow, general swing to the N/NW throughout the day, allowing some beaches to clean up. But without any notable swell your only options will be inside sheltered northern corners. 

Expect a couple of feet of peaky residual E'ly swell at most open beaches (with a chance for a little more size of NE windswell in the south); leave it until the afternoon if you can as the morning looks problematic at most coasts, under the strengthening northerly flow. 

An intense low pressure system forming east of Bass Strait on Saturday afternoon will drive W’ly tending SW and eventual S’ly winds across most coasts throughout Sunday. 

The broadest fetch around the low will be straight W’ly, aimed away from our region. However, a marginally smaller fetch of 50kt winds is modeled to form around the low’s western flank - aimed into Northern NSW's acute south swell window.

Now, it won’t hang around very long. And short-lived fetches are unreliable and have flukey potential; there’s a threshold where their ability to properly activate the ocean kicks in, and if the low moves too quickly to the east, or displays these winds for an insufficient length of time, it may not realise the full swell potential.

And, being further away from the fetch (than Southern NSW), we’re at an even greater risk of a non-event.

By and large, it looks like the supporting fetch will be worthy of a general increase into the 4-5ft+ range at reliable south swell magnets south of Byron at some point in time, but here’s the rub: the timing of the low means the leading edge of south swell may not reach the Mid North Coast until well after lunchtime, so it may not be until late in the day that most beaches (i.e. into the Far Northern NSW) see an appreciable increase. 

This also means this short lived south swell will also peak overnight, and fade quickly before sunrise Monday.

Regardless, so very late Sunday (Mid North Coast) and very early Monday (Far Northern NSW) is your best chance at seeing the most energy from this system. Ignore the model guidance for Sunday morning on the Mid North Coast, it’s all local windswell noise.

SE Qld probably won’t see anything until early Monday, and even then, most beaches will miss out due to the acute angle; exposed northern ends and other south swell magnets may pick up 3ft sets if we’re lucky.

It’s also worth pointing out that growing swell periods associated with the stronger core winds could exaggerate wave heights at offshore bombies and the like, though this is contingent on surface winds reaching 50kts+ over a reasonable fetch length, and the models are split on whether this will eventuate. Worse: we won’t have the latest satellite data until mid-morning Sunday to confirm whether it happened (because of the proximity of the fetch to the mainland), so we’ll have to just wait and see what eventuates. It's a low percentage event, that's for sure.

Of course, beaches not open to the south will be much smaller in size too. And a flukey swell source such as this will produce mixed results from coast to coast. So keep your expectations low from this event. 

Next week (April 1 onwards)

Sunday’s swell will ease slowly through Monday, and a secondary south swell will fill into Northern NSW coasts during the day,  generated by a powerful polar low associated with Sunday’s development, well south of Tasmania. South facing beaches south of Byron should see inconsistent sets around 4-5ft+ at times, but it’ll be much smaller elsewhere. However with fresh southerly winds (SW early), only protected spots will offer clean conditions. 

In SE Qld the S’ly swell may reach 3ft at exposed northern ends and other south swell magnets, but it’ll be much smaller along the outer points, with a mix of swells including a slowly building E’ly swell from recent developments north of New Zealand. Southerly quadrant winds here too will favour protected spots despite the small size. 

As for the recent tropical developments setting up camp in and around the Fijian region - the models have recalibrated the synoptics quite a bit since Wednesday; our increase next week will now be smaller in size as it looks like the tropical low won’t become quite as strong and defined as first thought.

Instead, we’ll see a strengthening ridge and a bog standard trade swell building to an inconsistent 3ft+ or so by Wednesday (smaller prior to this). A concurrent ridge building through the Northern Tasman Sea early in the week will build mid-range SE swells of a similar size. Expect peaky, wind affected waves reaching perhaps 3-4ft+ at open beaches (peaking Wed/Thurs, smaller either side of this), with slightly smaller surf running down the outer points, reaching 3ft at the height of the swell (again, smaller either side). S/SE winds will remain fresh all week which will favour the points.  

A more significant tropical low is expected to form much further east (south of Tahiti) on Monday and Tuesday and this looks impressive as a swell source - but it’s a heck of a long way from the mainland, so even a super-charged system would only produce relatively small (though long period) surf across our coasts. 

Nevertheless, it shows that we’ve got a long-lived round of E’ly swell on the cards for the entire East Coast, stretching into next weekend and the following week.

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!