South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 29th April)

Best Days: MNC Tuesday morning, Friday morning all locations, similar Saturday morning and protected spots from Sunday

Recap

Small and clean on the Gold and Sunny coasts each morning over the weekend, to 2ft or so, though better Sunday with a S'ly swell showing on the magnets. To the south the waves were on the small side and with average winds Saturday, followed by a building S'ly windswell. The Mid North Coast saw a strong pulse of mid-period S'ly swell early afternoon with sets pushing to 4-6ft at magnets.

Sunday was the pick across most locations though with surf between 3-5ft along with offshore breezes, easing a touch into the afternoon and bumpy.

This morning an onshore change ripped through Ballina and Yamba, creating poor conditions, cleaner and better around Coffs and Port with 3-4ft of S'ly swell. The Gold Coast and Sunny Coast remained clean but small.

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

This week and weekend (Apr 30 – May 5)

These notes will be brief-ish as Ben’s away on holidays.

A final cold front pushing up and through the Tasman Sea yesterday should produce one final pulse of S'ly groundswell which will arrive this evening and ease tomorrow.

The Mid North Coast should see 3-4ft sets, possibly 3-5ft around Ballina, but winds will be onshore now and out of the E, creating poor conditions. From Coffs, south, morning W'ly offshores are due, NE into the afternoon.

The Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast should see early morning SW-S/SW breezes but only be small and to 2ft or so, a little bigger on the south magnets.

The onshore E'ly breeze around northern NSW is linked to a high moving into the Tasman Sea and a building ridge on its northern flank, aiming a patchy E/SE fetch through our eastern swell window.

We'll see building levels of E/SE trade-swell from Wednesday, starting as windswell and strengthening through the end of the week. With the fetch not reaching any real strength open beaches are only due to reach 3ft+ Friday and Saturday. The Mid North Coast will be a bit smaller and to 2-3ft or so.

There'll also be some very inconsistent long-range E'ly trade-swell in the mix to 3ft or so from an expansive fetch of E'ly trades in the South Pacific with it arriving later week and persisting through the weekend.

Winds will be generally average and E/NE across the Gold and Sunny Coasts, lighter from the N early each morning further south (N/NW Mid North Coast) with more variable winds likely across northern NSW and the Gold Coast Friday morning.

A cold front moving across the south-east of the country will bring NW tending W and SW winds on Saturday, arriving across the northern NSW coast early-mid afternoon at this stage and maybe not until dark on the Goldy.

On Sunday a stronger pulse of E/SE swell is due, generated by a low forming in the trade-flow over the back of New Zealand later this week. A great fetch strong SE winds will be projected towards us, followed by near gale-force SE winds around the core of the low.

Longer-lined 3-4ft sets are due in south-east Queensland and northern NSW. Winds on Sunday will be S/SW-S/SE and we may see some new building S/SE swell from a deepening low in the Tasman Sea, but more on this Wednesday.