South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 1st May)

Best Days: Sat: fun tho' inconsistent E'ly swells with offshore winds. Sun/Mon/Tues: solid S'ly swells (mainly showing MNC on Sun, Mon elsewhere, much smaller SE Qld). Gusty S'ly winds developing from Sun lunch onwards, holding until mid-week. Wed - Sun: small building E'ly swell, biggest in SE Qld, possibly a decent size by early in the following week.

Recap: Thursday morning offered clean conditions early mainly SE Qld and Far Northern NSW) before the northerly breeze kicked in, with 2-3ft+ of inconsistent E’ly swell on offer. Winds freshened from the north throughout the day though, writing off most locations and building local windswells. The Lower Mid North Coast saw a late offshore change and window of clean peaky surf. Today dawned sunny and clean with moderate offshore winds across most coasts and clean 2-3ft+ peaky E’ly swells across open stretches. Hope you got some!

Friday dawn patrol at the Superbank wave machine

How's the bank?

Nice Friday lines at Caloundra, shame about the cross-shore wind

Backlit at Snapper

Small early grinders at the Pass

This weekend (May 2 - 3)

There’s no major changes to the weekend forecast.

Model guidance suggests the E’ly swell will ease slowly from today thru’ Sunday, but I don’t think this will be the case. 

Yes, ocean swell sizes will slowly decrease but we’ve got a couple of pulses of longer period E’ly energy on the way, generated by a strengthening of the trade flow south of Fiji over the last few days. As mentioned on Wednesday, the extra travel distance will probably balance out the size boost (courtesy of the longer periods), so we’ll probably end up with similar sized surf as per the last few days (2-3ft+ most open beaches).

But, a few caveats: (1) it’ll be even less consistent than the last few days due to the more distant source, and (2) we’re currently ‘between pulses’, so there’s a risk early Saturday may be slightly undersized.

Conditions look excellent for all open beaches Saturday with light offshore winds in the north, freshening in strength as you track southwards, becoming gusty across the Mid North Coast at times.  

Sunday is a dynamic day for surf. 

The Long Wave Trough currently responsible for cold weather, gale force winds and cold temps won’t push into our south swell window until Saturday morning, so the earliest we’ll see an upswing in new southerly swell will be early Sunday morning along the Mid North Coast, and early/mid Sunday afternoon along the Far North Coast. For what it’s worth, SE Qld may not see any new S’ly swell until about dinner time, so keep your expectations low for a late pulse north the border.

In fact, a S’ly change will also move up the coast during Sunday - not too far off the timing of the swell - so any size gains will be offset by deteriorating conditions (protected locations north from the Mid North Coast may not see enough size until very late in the day). 

As such, aim for an early surf to capitalise on the existing E’ly swell. We’ll see morning W’ly winds north from about Coffs Harbour, with the S’ly change expected at Byron just after lunch, crossing the border mid-afternoon.

As for size, Monday will see the peak energy but late Sunday should push 6ft, maybe 6-8ft at south facing beaches south of about Coffs (smaller prior to this, though still solid), and it'll be a lot smaller at beaches not open to the south. 

North from Coffs will (likely) reach a smaller size by the end of the day as we’ll be yet to approach the main peak. I’ll update in the comments if any interesting observations come to hand that may shift this timing.

Next week (May 4 onwards)

A coastal ridge will develop in the lee of Sunday’s change, maintaining fresh to strong S/SE winds for quite a few days next week. This will favour protected locations for the best surf, as open beaches will be rather blown out.

Monday should peak somewhere between 6-8ft at south facing beaches south of Byron, but it’ll be much smaller at locations not open to the south, and in SE Qld too where we’ll see 3-4ft surf across the outer Gold Coast points and smaller waves across the Sunshine Coast (expect very small conditions across the inner points).

This swell will ease by a foot or two through Monday afternoon, but the downwards trend will eventually be arrested by a small pulse of long period S’ly swell generated by a polar low racing below Tasmania on Sunday. This should keep Tuesday and maybe early Wednesday in the 3-5ft range at south facing beaches south of Byron, with 2-3ft surf across SE Qld outer points. Unfortunately exposed beaches won’t really have many options through this period.

The coastal ridge will broaden through the Coral Sea early next week, supplying useful trade swell across SE Qld until next weekend and beyond. No major size is likely but we should see 3ft sets on the Gold Coast by Thursday (maybe 3-4ft on the Sunshine Coast), but smaller surf south from Ballina. This should hold through Friday, and both days should see a steady improvement in conditions - especially in Northern NSW - as the ridge draws away from the coast, relaxing the pressure gradient.

Looking further ahead, and there’s a suggestion for an associated, evolving trough/low north of New Zealand later next week that could be a more substantial E’ly swell generating system for early-midway through the following week, but that’s a long time away.

Looking to the south (and rewinding a few days), a broad, deep polar low below Tasmania mid-week (see below) will generate small though long period S’ly swells for the end of the week (say, 3ft+ south facing beaches south of Byron Thurs/Fri).

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!