South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 19th February)

Best Days: Late Thurs: strong new S'ly swell on the MNC with easing S'ly winds. Early window of small trade swell and light winds north from Byron. Fri: morning light winds, fun mix of easing S'ly swell (Northern NSW) and inconsistent E'ly swell (SE Qld). Sat onwards: average run of trade swell, though quite workable.

Recap: A persistent mix of south-east swell (across Northern NSW) and E’ly trade swell (throughout SE Qld) has provided plenty of waves over the last few days. Conditions were excellent across quite a few regions on Tuesday, though many locations were affected by freshening northerlies today. As for size, Northern NSW delivered 3ft, occ 3-4ft waves on Tuesday but today muscled up at some swell magnets with sets pushing 4-5ft. North of the border the trade swell has hung in around 2-3ft both days. 

Clean early Wednesday lines on the Sunshine Coast

The northerly was up early at Byron Bay

Still quite workable at D'Bah though

Chunky Wednesday morning beachies in Northern NSW

This week (Feb 20 - 21)

Today’s northerlies will be a distant memory by Thursday morning. 

A southerly change will push up the Northern NSW coast overnight, and should be somewhere near Byron Bay around dawn. It’ll then push across SE Qld over the following hours - only the Sunshine Coast is at risk of a brief N/NW flow at first light, before a period of variable winds develop ahead of the change which should arrive around lunchtime.

As for surf, we’ll see a minor decrease in trade swell activity into the 2ft+ range across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld, and today’s strong SE pulse will also ease back, mainly an inconsistent 3ft at most exposed beaches though a few bigger waves can’t be ruled out at the swell magnets. However, these spots will become blown out as the change moves through (there’s a slim window at dawn across the Tweed and Byron Coasts, that’s about it south of the border for the morning session).

The good news is that the change will be shallow, so should ease back into the afternoon. This will be more noticeable across the Mid North Coast where we could see an afternoon of light winds, though I suspect it’ll remain bumpy all day in Far Northern NSW. 

We also have some new S’ly swell on the way. 

A deepening low pressure system just east of Bass Strait today will start to move through our swell window tonight, having spent its formative stages inside the Gippsland swell shadow. 

It will spend only a short time aimed properly towards our region before moving to the south-east, so we’ll see a quick peak in S’ly swell, reaching the Mid North Coast into the afternoon and pulsing to 3-5ft at south facing beaches in the last few hours before dark.

This swell will reach Far Northern NSW overnight and then trend down during the day (it’ll be already easing on the Mid North Coast by this time) so you’ll have to be quick to capitalise on the size. South facing beaches south of Byron will see the most size, and its directional nature means surf size will be considerably smaller at beaches not exposed to the south.

North of the border, we won’t see much, if any new swell from this source, away from a handful of exposed northern ends and south facing beaches. 

There is one other swell source on the cards for Friday. A small undercurrent of E/NE swell is expected to nose into the coast, originating from a sub-tropical low positioned east of New Zealand over the last few days. However the large travel distance and poor alignment within our swell window will erode a lot of the consistency, and it won’t be terribly big either - perhaps bumping up SE Qld beaches to an inconsistent 2-3ft. 

This weekend (Feb 22 - 23)

The distant E’ly swell mentioned for Friday should muscle up a little more into Saturday. Set waves will be horribly inconsistent but should push 3ft+ at exposed beaches at times. We’ll then see this source easing into Sunday. 

Also in the water on Saturday across Northern NSW will be S’ly swell from Friday, abating from 3ft+ to 2ft+ at south facing beaches south of Byron, with much smaller surf elsewhere.

A new S’ly swell will push across Northern NSW on Sunday, sourced from a front travelling under Tasmania Thursday, but I’ll be surprised if south facing beaches push much more than the 2-3ft mark.

In any case, conditions look a little average for exposed spots this weekend, as the strengthening ridge freshens E/SE winds across most coasts. Early Saturday morning should see a brief period of lighter, more variable winds but the synoptic flow will kick in by mid-morning, and most of Sunday looks to maintain this theme. We’ll also see a corresponding increase in trade swell but it won’t be enough to light up protected spots with anything amazing.

As such, it looks like a weekend of compromises: decent size but wobbly tending choppy at the open beaches, or smaller, cleaner and weaker at the semi-exposed points.  

Next week (Feb 24 onwards)

The northern Tasman Sea ridge should supply plenty of workable trade swell for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW early next week, though no major size is likely. There’s still a suggestion for a weak trough off the SE Qld coast but the models have cooled a little since Monday so I’m now less confident that this will develop into notable swell source. 

However, there’s a whole bunch of activity - including a tropical cyclone - expected to develop east of a line between New Zealand and Fiji, which has potential for long range E/NE swell mid-late next week. We need a few more days to firm things up on this though.

Otherwise the Southern Ocean storm track looks like it’ll aligns nicely within our south swell window around Wednesday of next week, leading to a strong southerly swell for Northern NSW later in the week that’s well worth tracking. More on this in Friday’s notes.