South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 1st July)

Best Days: Tues: the least windiest day of the forecast period. Otherwise, it's protected points only with an extended run of solid E'ly swell. 

Recap: Saturday was pretty average on the whole, with building trade swells around 4-5ft and mainly moderate onshore winds across most coasts, easing into the afternoon. Sunday dawned much cleaner with light winds, and a solid E’ly groundswell built throughout the day, reaching a peak late afternoon with 8ft+ sets at some coasts. Conditions were generally clean, even glasy at some coasts for the late session. Surf size throttled back a little today but remained consistent, up to 6-8ft at some exposed coasts in Far Northern NSW, but smaller elsewhere and along the points. Winds were light early but freshened from the south throughout the day, favouring the points and other protected spots. No doubt you’ve cast an eye over the surfcams, which showed some truly epic surf across many SE Qld points. Here's a couple of surfcam stills (and two regular photo to begin with).

Sasha Stocker, Tweed Coast, Sunday afternoon

Large lines on the Tweed Coast this morning

Peanut gallery at Snapper

Big walls at Burleigh

Smaller at Noosa, but still super fun

Heaving burns at Kirra

Sizeable though wind affected at Narrowneck

This week (July 2 - 5)

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

It’s odd to be looking at this kind of synoptic setup in the middle of winter. A one-day wonder is one thing, but - following two days of large E'ly groundswell - we’re staring down the barrel of another whole week of solid, nay, large E’ly surf. Though, there won't be quite the same quality seen over the last thirty six hours. 

Now from a forecasting perspective, we’re also sitting at an awkward phase of the swell cycle. 

Based on model guidance, we’re still slowly heading upwards, in fact swell periods are expected to reach a peak in the early hours of Tuesday morning. There is some windswell contamination in the mix now though, as a new ridge builds along the coast. So we have to be careful with wave height estimates. 

Of course, there are no wave buoys in the central Tasman Sea to actually record whether the model guidance is on track or not. 

The tropical depression responsible for today’s waves is currently stationary south of Fiji, and expected to remain in our easterly swell window until Thursday (!), and then through the weekend and early next week shift to a position further east, still generating useful background swell.

That’s more than a week of swell generation, and with the fetch maintaining strength (plus the added bonus of a fully developed sea state, thanks to its stationary nature), we’re looking at underlying E’ly groundswell holding 4-6ft across most open coasts from Tuesday thru’ Saturday.

In addition to this, a strong ridge will develop across the Coral Sea from Wednesday. This system alone looks sufficient to generate 4-6ft of mid-range SE swell throughout Far Northern NSW and SE Qld at its own accord! In fact the latest model guidance has a small trough developing across the Capricornia coast into the weekend, which will keep elevated mid range E’ly swells through the weekend before easing early next week.

The combination of the E’ly groundswell and mid-range SE swell on Thursday and Friday should push surf size a little higher, though I think the model is overestimating surf size  - it’s incorrectly combining swell trains, see below - the swell direction tends more E/SE on Thurs/Fri before reverting back to the underlying E’ly groundswell through Saturday and into Sunday. 

So, expect some bigger surf to finish the week, but with gusty SE tending E/SE winds in the 20-30kt range, everywhere but the most sheltered locations will be quite blown out.

Short version: find some protection. 

This weekend (July 6 - 7)

I’ve already detailed much of the weekend in the notes above, but we’re essentially looking at persistent E’ly winds and a strong mix of E’ly swells from the long range source as well as the ridge adjacent the coast.

Surf size should still be holding the 4-6ft range at most coasts. And with this wind direction, there won’t be a lot of shelter, so keep your weekend expectations low for now (unless you’ve got access to a particularly well protected point).

Next week (July 8 onwards)

The longer term outlook has steadily easing mix of E’ly swells with much lighter winds as the ridge eases along the coast. There’ll be plenty of waves for quite some time though, so no need to make plans: you’ll be able to find tune things once we get a better grip on local winds. 

A small though long period S/SE swell is also possible across Northern NSW around Tues/Wed from an intense polar low developing south of New Zealand over the weekend. I’ll keep an eye on that over the coming days. 

See you Wednesday!