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

Best Days: Tues/Wed: solid S'ly swell in Northern NSW (much smaller in SE Qld), light winds. Thurs: small leftover S'ly swell in Northern NSW (not much in SE Qld), freshening offshore winds. Late Sun thru' Thurs: extended run of solid, occasionally sizeable S'ly swell for Northern NSW, though much smaller in SE Qld.

Recap: We’ve seen pulsey, intermittent S/SE swells for the last few days, ebbing and flowing as a series of swell fronts pushed across the region. Wave heights have been up around the 5-6ft mark across south facing beaches south of Byron, whilst SE Qld saw much smaller surf, around 2ft, occasionally 2-3ft at outer points and up to 4ft at exposed northern ends, with smaller wave heights again across the Sunshine Coast. Winds have been generally light and therefore conditions have been pretty good.

Early Monday peaks at Narrowneck (inside and outside)

Fun Monday peaks at D'Bah

Long morning lines at The Pass

Still some fun runners at Snapper this afternoon

This week (August 6 - 9)

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The slow moving LWT across New Zealand latitudes over the weekend delivered snow to sea level across the South Island.

The associated fronts were slightly off-kilter for our swell window, but the fetch length has been very impressive and an intense polar low at the bottom of the system (just off the ice shelf) displayed a nice core of 50kt+ winds yesterday, of which the associated swell energy will arrive across Northern NSW tomorrow. 

As such, despite the swell charts showing much smaller surf for the next few days (it’s resolving the periods well, but not the swell size), I am holding steady with occasional 4-6ft waves pulsing across south facing beaches (south of Byron) on Tuesday and Wednesday - though an easing trend will kick in during the afternoon, and the afternoon may see smaller surf, before Thursday displays a more prominent downwards trend. As per usual, expect much smaller surf at beaches with less southerly exposure. 

However, I’m also expecting a brief period of slightly larger waves, mainly across reliable south swell magnets and offshore bombies, where the longer periods should help to focus and magnify surf size up over 6ft for a few hours. This is likely to occur sometime Tuesday lunchtime afternoon (give or take - obviously earlier in the south, a little later in the north). Keep an eye out for a jump in swell periods to 17-18 seconds at the regional buoys, which should signify its imminent arrival. 

Across SE Qld, we’ll see much smaller surf, though the Gold Coast should still pick up some fun waves across the outer points at times, similar to today wth generally 2ft sets, every now and then pushing into the 2-3ft range but bigger around 3ft+ at exposed northern ends and south facing beaches. It will be terribly inconsistent though, and the Sunshine Coast will be a little smaller again.

Local conditions look pretty good, with generally light winds though with a series of fronts approaching from the SW later int he week, the (light) morning synoptic flow will be out of the W/NW and this leads to a chance for light to moderate N’ly thru’ NE breezes into the afternoon. It won’t be strong enough to cause any major problems, but it will ruffle up the points and spoil things a little (so aim for a morning session). 

On Wednesday, a small but intense cut-off low will pass just south of Tasmania (see image below). Although core winds look to be very strong, the narrow fetch width and poor alignment means we probably won’t see much, if any size across the East Coast. As such, I suspect the rest of the week will be mainly serviced by steadily easing swell from the current/impending event. 

Freshening N/NW winds Thursday will veer W/NW on Friday as the fronts start to encroach our region. So, open beaches will be clean but becoming pretty small, even at south swell magnets. 

This weekend (August 10 - 11)

A small polar low will merge with the small mid-week cut-off low below Tasmania around Thursday (see image above), and the associated S’ly fetch developing between the two will kick up a small S’ly swell for Saturday around 2ft at south facing beaches south of Byron. It’s not worth getting too excited about though. Expect very small conditions throughout SE Qld.

Surface conditions will be rather blustery though clean, as a complex upper and surface low moves across the SE corner of the country around the same time, strengthening W’ly winds before the surface low consolidates in the southern Tasman Sea, and strong S/SW winds develop across the region into Sunday.

These winds will generate building S’ly swells for Sunday that should reach a windy 4-6ft at south facing beaches south of Byron, however I don’t like its alignment for surf prospects at protected locations and (especially) throughout SE Qld, which will handle the breeze the best. 

As such, despite the building size on the charts for Sunday, keep your expectations in check. There’ll be better surf beyond this anyway (read below!).

Next week (August 12 onwards)

Looks like another node of the LWT will amplify in our prime south swell window next weekend, slingshotting a series of strong fronts from polar latitudes into the southern Tasman Sea, and generating another lengthy spell of strong, sizeable S’ly groundswell that’ll hold into next Wednesday or Thursday. 

There’s a chance for some pretty big waves from this progression too (check the strength of the polar low at the tail end of the fetch, below!), but we’ll need to monitor the model trends over the coming days.