South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 30th August)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: pockets of OK surf, though probably restricted to the Mid North Coast. Only small in SE Qld. Keep an eye out for a late E'ly pulse on Sunday. Mon: super fun E'ly swell with light winds. Easing Tues/Wed with generally good winds. 

Recap: Small S’ly swells managed occasional 2ft+ waves south of Byron early Thursday before winds swung to the south, bumping up the beaches. We’ve seen a slight increase in surf size today though it’s remained tiny north of the border, and winds have persisted out of the south. 

Very small peelers at Snapper this morning

Tiny runners along the Superbank

This weekend (Aug 31 - Sep 1)

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There’s been a little more shuffling around with two low pressure troughs - one current in place across the Mid North Coast and another developing way out in the northern Tasman Sea. 

They’ve essentially slowed in their development, though by and large the weekend outlook is the same for local conditions with moderate to fresh southerly quadrant winds both days in most areas. We’ll see periods of SW winds at times but aside form a few local exceptions along the Mid North Coast, don’t expect to see much in the way of quality surf at exposed beaches. 

The main swell event for the weekend will be out of the SE, from the current trough adjacent the coast. This fetch is aimed mainly into the Hunter region so we’ll see smaller surf as you track north. South facing beaches south from Coffs should see 3-4ft sets Saturday, easing Sunday, and it’ll be smaller north to Ballina.

I’m not expecting much size in SE Qld this weekend, just a foot to maybe two of slow, weak surf across the outer Gold Coast points, even smaller on the Sunny Coast. Exposed northern ends will be a little bigger but wind affected.

We’ll see slightly better conditions (read: longer periods of SW winds) on the Mid North Coast thanks to the way the two troughs will work together. Either way, it’s not going to be fantastic so keep your expectations in check. 

The slight delay on this evolving synoptic pattern has also marginally delayed the early developmental stages of the second trough, expected to broaden across the Northern Tasman Sea this weekend.

It’ll now strengthen through Saturday, reach maturity early Sunday and then weaken from Monday. This means the resulting E’ly swell has also been pushed back a little, and will be a touch smaller than Wednesday’s notes indicated. We could see some late sets in the 4ft range at exposed beaches but Monday is a better bet.

Next week (Sep 2 onwards)

The models don’t like the look of the inbound E’ly swell, estimating just 3ft from this source on Monday. 

Whilst it’s not going to light up the coast with phenomenal A-frames, I think we’ll see a fun day of waves with light variable tending offshore winds and peaky sets in the 3-5ft range at exposed beaches in Northern NSW, a fraction smaller in SE Qld because of the latitude of the fetch (sitting level with Byron, and with the indeed trending more E/NE if anything).

Expect smaller waves at sheltered locations, but plenty of options at most wide open beaches exposed to the east.

Wave heights will ease slowly from this source into Tuesday and Wednesday as the trough moves further to the east, and we’ll see mainly light winds and clean conditions. A couple of modest fronts traversing southern waters may briefly swing winds to the south though only the Mid North Coast is likely to see any strength of note. 

One of these fronts will push out of Bass Strait early Tuesday morning and generate a brief flush of S’ly swell for Northern NSW, probably arriving early Wednesday morning with inconsistent 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches south of Byron. it'll be short lived though and isn't worth getting too excited about.

Looking further ahead, and a strong frontal system is expected to push into the lower south-eastern Tasman Sea mid-late next week, which should generate some very good S/SE groundswell for Northern NSW next weekend, much smaller in SE Qld. Further southerly swells are expected to trail behind this.

Have a great weekend! See you Monday.