South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 7th August)

Best Days: Early Thurs: small clean leftover S'ly swell at south swell magnets south of Byron, if yr lucky. Mon thru' Thurs: solid S'ly swells. 

Recap: We’ve seen some great waves over the last few days. Tuesday managed 4-6ft sets at south facing beaches south of Byron, 4-5ft across the Tweed Coast, 2-3ft+ across the Gold Coast (depending on exposure to the south) but much smaller surf on the Sunny Coast (sorry!). Early light offshore winds gave way to light/mod N/NE afternoon breezes. Size eased to around 4ft at south facing beaches south of Byron today, proportionally smaller elsewhere but with similar winds. Hope you scored!

Still some nice S'ly lines at Coffs this arvo

This week (August 8 - 9)

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

We’re now on the backside of our most recent southerly pulse, and we’re looking towards a temporary spell of smaller waves ahead of a renewal of strong south swell next week.

Model guidance maintains small ocean wave heights for the next few days, though the periods are disproportionally strong around 13 seconds (thanks to the overall strength of the storm activity that’s delivered this last week of south swell).

So even though we’re likely to see only small surf for the next two days, we can’t rule out occasional periods of rogue leftover sets. This is more likely Thursday morning, with south facing beaches south of Byron seeing occasional 3ft sets, smaller elsewhere (especially SE Qld). Otherwise expect background energy to pad out the rest of the week.

As for conditions, it’ll be clean across the open beaches as a series of strong fronts push across the Southern NSW coast, with freshening NW thru’ W/NW winds favouring the wide open beaches and northern ends. 

Get in early Thursday at your favourite south swell magnet, or forever hold your peace. 

This weekend (August 10 - 11)

The small south swell mentioned for Saturday (in Monday’s notes) has been downgraded in recent runs. 

As such Saturday’s surf prospects will hinge around the alignment of an intense frontal passage through eastern Bass Strait from late Friday onwards. 

It’s a tricky call. Winds could be 40-50kts within our acute south swell window but I fear that the alignment will be too west to favour swell production for much of the East Coast.

South swell magnets (perhaps just south of Coffs at first) should pick up very small waves - perhaps 1-2ft Saturday, building to 2-3ft+ on Sunday and spreading a little more broadly across Northern NSW as the storm track slowly veers fractionally more meridional away from the earlier zonal pattern. However, it’s knife edge stuff, and I really won’t have any confidence in the numbers until Friday’s update. 

SE Qld will remain tiny all weekend with gusty W’ly winds. 

Let’s take a final pass on Friday to see if the models have pushed back in our alignment.

Next week (August 12 onwards)

The LWT will amplify through the Tasman Sea early next week, and a series of powerful polar lows will march through our south swell window, generating a series of solid S’ly swells that'll reach 6ft+ or so across south facing beaches south of Byron (smaller elsewhere), ebbing and pulsing from Monday through Thursday before easing Friday. 

Monday looks a little wind affected but a high pressure ridge will calm down the local breeze from Tuesday onwards, leading to better surf conditions.

SE Qld will be much smaller all week thanks to the swell direction but the outer Gold Coast points should see a few days pushing 2ft, maybe 2-3ft and there’ll be bigger options at exposed northern ends and south swell magnets (Tues onwards is your best bet for now). 

More in Friday's update.