South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 2nd August)

Best Days: Strong southerly swell for the next four or five days. Relatively small in SE Qld but sizeable in Northern NSW. Mainly light winds too. 

Recap: Thursday’s S’ly swell reached 4-6ft across Northern NSW’s south facing beaches, with SE Qld seeing smaller surf though some of the outer points (i.e. Superbank, see below) still did pretty well despite the reduced size. Wave heights eased back a smidge today. Moderate southerlies have kept things clean through the mornings (SW tendency) with slightly bumpy options through the afternoon (SE tendency). 

Superbank looking fine Thursday afternoon

This weekend (August 3 - 4)

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The leading edge of a long period S’ly swell is just pushing across Southern NSW and should reach Northern NSW overnight. It’s source from an incredible low pressure system that tracked perpendicularly across our south swell window yesterday, through the lower Tasman Sea (see satellite winds below).

It is a real shame that this low wasn’t aimed properly in our swell window, as it’s probably the strongest mid-latitude system I have seen in the Tasman Sea for many, many years (to be honest, I can’t recall a stronger one offhand).

Because core winds are so strong, peak swell periods should punch higher than what model guidance is suggesting, though we will see the largest periods north of the border - because they’ll still be growing across the Mid North Coast.

Nevertheless, we’re looking at 6ft+ sets at south facing beaches south of Byron, with smaller options at remaining beaches. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the regional swell swell magnets push a little higher than these estimates at times. The strength of this low is right up there, and had other conditions been adequate, we could have easily been looking at a very significant swell event. 

Throughout SE Qld, I’ve changed my opinion on this swell since Wednesday's notes (mainly based on the ASCAT returns, above), and I think there’s a decent chance that that it’ll perform pretty well for the outer points, because most of the energy will have been sourced from the eastern Tasman Sea (admittedly the southern sector). 

This should result in the swell direction being slightly east of south, and with the large swell periods, we should see some lovely diffraction into the points. Expect inconsistent set waves in and around the 2-3ft+ mark here (slightly smaller on the Sunshine Coast) though exposed northern ends should see bigger waves around the 4ft+ mark at times. 

Light winds are expected in all regions so conditions will be clean.

On Sunday, most of the day will see slowly easing S’ly swell from Saturday and generally light winds, with a slight risk of a moderate southerly on the Mid North Coast. Sunday could be one of those days that’s a little too strong for south facing beaches but a little too small for protected southern ends and also many parts of the SE Qld coast. But, there'll be plenty of waves around to search for.

A new long period southerly swell expected to arrive Sunday afternoon has unfortunately been downgraded since Wednesday’s notes. In fact so has the whole sequence for early next week.

The size and progression of the developing weather system hasn’t changed much, but model guidance now has a weaker fetch. Worse, it’s tilted the alignment slightly more SW-NE than before (a little more outside out swell window). This means the swell energy will have to do more work to bend back into the NSW coast and we’ll suffer a further size loss as a result. Model guidance still has swell periods boosting to 17.7 seconds after lunch, so this is a good sign.

Most of the size increase will fill in across Monday, but late Sunday should see some 4-5ft, maybe 4-6ft sets at south facing beaches - though probably south from Coffs (it’ll be slightly delayed in the Far North). 

Next week (August 5 onwards)

So, we’re still looking at a prolonged spell of elevated swells out of the south early next week - just a little smaller in size than previously suggested, though not by much. 

Monday and Tuesday should both maintain 4-6ft surf at most south facing beaches south of Byron, and a brief pulse embedded within (likely early Tuesday) should push north of 6ft+ at times. 

A very slow easing trend will then kick in from early Wednesday (still 4-6ft south facing beaches early, south of Byron), and smaller background south swell will pad out the rest of the week.

Across SE Qld, we’ll see the same trend but with much less size, mainly 2-3ft and very inconsistent across the outer points but up to 4ft at exposed northern ends. If anything, expect slightly smaller surf across the Sunshine Coast. 

Conditions look great in the north Monday, Tuesday and early Wednesday ahead of a freshening pre-frontal N’ly flow Wednesday afternoon, before W/NW winds hold out for the rest of the week as the fronts scoot through to the south.

The Mid North Coast will also see light winds Monday and early Tuesday, but the N’ly threat is earlier here (Tuesday afternoon) and could persist into Wednesday. However northern corners will remain clean throughout.

A quick front south of Tasmania mid-week may generate a small pulse of new S’ly swell for the end of the week, but current indications are that it’ll be very poorly aligned within our swell window. 

Longer term maintains a strong westerly frontal sequence across the SE corner of the country (including a polar outbreak with very cold conditions) and this is likely to maintain fresh offshore winds for a few days. As this broader LWT passage pushes into Bass Strait by the end of next weekend or early in the following week, our southerly swell window should fire up again with strong short range energy for Southern NSW.

Have a great weekend!