South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 5th July)

Best Days: Only well-protected spots will be worthwhile over the weekend. Outer points Mon as the E'ly swell eases and winds become light, then fun beachies for the rest of the week with a mix of S/SE and E'ly swells and light winds. 

Recap: It’s been large and windy for the last few days, only suitable for protected points. Set waves have been up around the 6ft+ mark at exposed spots. 

This weekend (July 6 - 7)

There’s no need to be overly specific in the weekend outlook: Saturday will be similar to today.

We’re looking at continuing onshore winds out of the E/SE and a large mix of swells out of the eastern quadrant, so unless you’ve got an extremely well protected spot, there won’t be many rideable options.

The ridge will start to weaken into Sunday and local winds will correspondingly relax, though it’ll still be mainly onshore - and following a couple of days of strong winds, there’ll be a lot of leftover wobble through the lineup. Surf size will gradually decrease though it’ll still only be suitable for sheltered points.

Putting a size on the weekend’s waves is difficult because it’s unlikely there’ll be any punters taking advantage of the upper end of this size range. But for what it’s worth, we’re probably looking at 6ft+ sets Saturday, easing to 4-6ft Sunday morning. You can calibrate your local point accordingly, but the main thing here is the trend: don’t worry too much Saturday; even Sunday will be a little problematic but it’ll be on the improve. 

Next week (July 8 onwards)

By Sunday, both of our swell sources (for the current event) will have weakened, so we’ll be on a steadily easing trend from Monday onwards. 

However, a broad ridge of high-pressure well out to the east of New Zealand is displaying an impressive E’ly fetch on its northern flank, though it’s a long way from our region and not particularly well aimed within our swell window. It should generally a long spell of background E’ly swell for most of next week - not enough to work around, but enough to keep the coast from becoming flat (in the absence of any other swells). 

We can expect Monday to see 4-5ft surf at exposed spots, gradually decreasing throughout the week to a low point in size of around 2ft+ by Friday. As always, expect smaller surf at locations with more protection.

In addition to this, we have a really nice S/SE groundswell on the way for Northern NSW (and exposed northern ends in SE Qld), generated by an intense polar low developing off the ice shelf SW of New Zealand over the weekend (see below). 

Although not well aligned within our swell window, it’s a powerful system and we should pick up a decent spread of groundswell, building through Tuesday afternoon and into Wednesday with 3-4ft+ sets at south facing beaches south of Byron Bay - though it’ll be much smaller at beaches not open to the south. However, because of the way this system develops across the eastern periphery of our swell window, I am expecting the swell to be a little flukier than normal though so your hit rate will vary from coast to coast. It's definitely worth working around though (let's wait and see how the banks are faring, eh?).

Across SE Qld, this swell won’t do much at most breaks (just 1-2ft sets) but exposed northern ends should pick up inconsistent 2-3ft sets that’ll blend in nicely with the background E’ly swell.

As for local conditions, we’ve got a reasonably good run coming up with a series of weak fronts alternating the airstream from the north-west through south-west all week. It’ll be quite light for the first few days - so exposed locations may see a lingering wobble - but otherwise we’ll see steadily improving conditions all week, and plenty of fun surf across the beach breaks. 

A much more powerful mid-latitude frontal system will cross the region into Friday, bringing about the potential for a solid short range S’ly swell across Northern NSW next weekend. More one that in Monday’s notes. 

Have a great weekend!