South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 24th July)

Best Days: Most days have potential for fun waves though the weekend should see the biggest surf (with the largest waves expected across the Sunshine Coast). It'll be pretty flukey and inconsistent though, with wide variations from break to break, and smaller surf south from the Gold Coast. Early next week should also provide fun beachies on the backside of this event with light winds keeping conditions clean. 

Recap: Tiny conditions in SE Qld for the last few days, with a small S/SE swell coming in a little under budget across Northern NSW, with slow 2ft sets at south facing beaches. A small new long range E’ly swell has appeared sporadically this afternoon, with slow, inconsistent 1-2ft sets at a handful of exposed beaches. 

Small E'ly lines showing in Yamba this afternoon

... and also in Coffs Harbour

This week (July 25 - 26)

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OK, first things first. A cold front pushed out from eastern Bass Strait overnight and is now progressing across the Tasman Sea. We’ll see a small, brief spike of S’ly swell across Northern NSW on Thursday (biggest in the afternoon), but exclusive to south swell magnets south of Byron. 

An associated S’ly change is pushing along the coast, and although it will clear to the east during the day, some locations may see a lingering S’ly breeze through the morning. Nevertheless, lighter winds are expected in the afternoon and this is when surf size will reach a peak, with inconsistent 3ft sets at south facing beaches south of the border (smaller earlier, especially in the Far North).

Elsewhere there won't be anywhere near as much size, and SE Qld won’t pick up much of the south swell away from exposed northern ends. 

This S’ly swell will then ease slowly through Friday.

We also still have some long range E’ly swell potential for the rest of the week.

Despite the last 36 hours seeing very little size from this quadrant, model guidance is maintaining 0.6m out of the east at 12 seconds on Thursday (across the Gold Coast), with swell periods jumping to 16 seconds on Friday afternoon. Based on the raw numbers alone, we should see inconsistent 2-3ft sets on Thursday and 3-4ft on Friday though I feel it’ll come in a little smaller than this, and a little slower too (i.e. undersized early Thursday) and quite inconsistent. 

Also, as mentioned on Thursday, because of the position of the low generating the swell relative to the shadowing influence of New Zealand, the Fraser/Sunshine Coast will pick up the most size from this event, with surf size likely to decrease slowly as you work your way south of the Gold Coast. Of course, there will be local exceptions to this rule but in general I anticipate the biggest waves will be found further north. 

Unfortunately there’s no way to assess the incoming swell as there are no physical buoys between the source and the Australian East Coast (apart from our nearshore network) so we’ll just have to monitor the surfcams for signs of life. 

Either way, Friday will see good conditions with light variable winds (maybe a weak afternoon sea breeze) and you’re likely to pick up the biggest waves in the afternoon. 
 
This weekend (July 27 - 28)

With only modest synoptic activity across the Tasman Sea later this week, our weekend’s surf potential will rely mainly on the long range east swell.

Again, confidence is not high for this event. And locations further north are likely to pick up the biggest waves, with smaller surf generally expect south from the Gold Coast - though local exceptions to this are likely to throw plenty of curveballs. 

Local winds look favourable for just about everywhere with a weak ridge of high pressure creating light offshore winds in the mornings, and light onshore sea breezes in the afternoons. 

Therefore, all we can really do is highlight the expect trend, peg a size and a region for the upper limits of the swell event, and then see what happens. 

As such, I still can’t find any evidence to deviate away from Monday’s estimates, with some reliable swell magnets on the Sunshine Coast seeing inconsistent 4-5ft+ sets on Saturday, easing to 3-5ft Sunday.

But, size will vary enormously across the region from break to break, and locations south from Moreton Island will see proportionally smaller surf; for reference the Mid North Coast probably coming in around 2-3ft Saturday, a little smaller Sunday.

Let’s see what happens, eh? 

Next week (July 29 onwards)

The E’ly swell machine E/NE of New Zealand is expected maintain strength until the end of this week, though with a slow eastward drift, so we’re looking at a pulsey mix of smaller long range E’ly swell across SE Qld early next week - down to 2-3ft+ Monday, but with a slight pulse of maringally longer period energy maintaining a similar size through Tuesday, before the easing trend starts to show more prominently from Wednesday onwards. I suspect there could be some form of underlying rideable E’ly swell until the end of the week though.

As per the weekend, expect smaller surf south from the Gold Coast.

Otherwise, a strong front is expected to rocket into the Southern Ocean next Tuesday, and delivery a spell of large, windy waves across Northern NSW with size around 6ft+ from Wednesday thru’ Friday, with southerly gales to accompany and the best surf likely to be across the SE Qld outer points where it'll be half the size or smaller.

More on that in Friday’s update.