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

Best Days: Sat: fun on the beachies with a mix of swells and generally OK winds. Sun: pockets of OK winds - very early in SE Qld, later in Northern NSW. More fun SE swell. Next week: lots of interesting swell sources. Potentially solid Fri onwards. 

Recap: Building short range SE swells Thursday reached a peak today with size around a bumpy 4ft+ at exposed stretches in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, smaller elsewhere, though the outer Gold Coast points have managed 3ft+ waves for much of the day. Surf quality has been reasonable at sheltered spots though the low periods haven’t offer anything amazing.  Winds have been moderate to fresh from the S thru’ SE for much of the last 48 hours. 

Empty dawn runners at Greenmount

This weekend (June 20 - 21)

We’ve had an upgrade in the weekend’s surf potential. 

A cut-off low off the west coast of New Zealand has been slightly upgraded since Wednesday’s model runs, which means there’s a second boost in size expected on Sunday morning, following a slight pulse due later today and early Saturday.

Saturday should see inconsistent surf in the 2-3ft+ range at south facing beaches south of Byron (smaller at southern ends), whilst Sunday’s pulse is likely to come in a little bigger, around 3-4ft+ at times (again, a little smaller at southern ends.

North of Byron, we’ll see a little less size owing to the less favourable fetch alignment with the coastal orientation. However, exposed northern ends should manage 2-3ft sets on Saturday and Sunday could reach 3ft+ into the afternoon - there may be a slight lag on its arrival here at first light. 

Also in the water on Saturday will be the tail end of the current, easing E’ly swell. This won’t really influence wave heights along the Mid North Coast, but anywhere north from Byron should pick up peaky 3ft+ sets, easing to 2-3ft through the day and then levelling at 2ft in the mix on Sunday.

Saturday looks to offer the best conditions of the weekend though, with a relaxing pressure gradient creating light winds and therefore reasonably clean waves faces. The lack of a synoptic offshore means it may be a little wobbly at times at exposed spots, and parts of SE Qld - mainly the Sunshine Coast - may see a lingering E’ly breeze for a while - but on the balance it’s looking very good.

Sunday is at risk of a freshening northerly wind as a trough pushes off the Southern NSW coast. However, we are likely to see winds veer NW through the day, assisting improving conditions. This pattern is much more likely across the Mid North Coast from late morning onwards, but more northern locations will see a delayed timing in the wind change and therefore there’s a greater chance conditions will become bumpy. SE Qld should see a period of light and variable winds very early though. 

Also worth mentioning for Sunday afternoon is some small long period S’ly swell across the Mid North Coast (late in the day), from a polar low passing below Tasmania and New Zealand over the last day or so. No major size is likely from this source though. 

Next week (June 22 onwards)

The low off NZ’s west coast providing Sunday’s flush of SE swell will push outside of our swell window over the weekend, aimed further north, resulting in sideband energy for Northern NSW early next week. 

This low will then track around the top of New Zealand and sit just inside the North Island early next week as an interesting but frustratingly shadowed swell source for much of next week. We may see intermittent energy from it all week (plus minor swells from a broader, though weaker and more distant E’ly infeed further east) but neither fetch is viewed as having strong swell potential.

Also, a small sneaky fetch of E/SE gales exiting western Cook Strait this weekend may generate another small pulse of swell for Northern NSW. 


Nevertheless the upshot is for inconsistent, easing E’ly swells early next week, from 2-3ft+ across Northern NSW early Monday, smaller elsewhere and throughout SE Qld, then easing through the day and into Tuesday around 2ft at exposed spots. It’ll be fun across the wide open beaches Monday and Tuesday as winds tend W’ly thanks to the coastal trough pushing further into the Tasman Sea. 

This coastal trough looks great on the synoptic charts but the unfortunate reality is that it’ll be mainly aimed towards Tasmania, and tracking unfavourably east, perpendicular to our swell window. Therefore I’m not expecting much size from this region.

The good news is that a new surface low will form at the southern end of the trough on Monday - off the Far South Coast - and this will slowly broaden a fetch of easterly gales across the entire southern Tasman Sea as the week progresses. 

Initially, we’ll see some SE swell push along Southern NSW through the first half of the week, quite large across eastern Tasmania and the Gippsland but only small across Sydney, Hunter and Illawarra coasts, and hardly anything in Northern NSW (let alone SE Qld) due to a poor fetch alignment. 

However, as the fetch widens and strengthens from Wednesday (see below) we’ll see wave heights increase in size - probably from about Thursday onwards - and steadily building 3-5ft surf across southern parts of Northern NSW later Thursday and Friday could become 5-6ft+ throughout the weekend. It’ll be much smaller in SE Qld but I am expecting some good waves at most coasts - winds pending. 

It needs to be said that your best size prospects will be further south (indeed, Southern NSW will fare the best from this system); wave heights will decrease with increasing northerly latitude. But at this early stage it’s looking like being a strong, sizeable and sustained swell event for much of the east coast later next week and through the weekend. I'll pin down the specifics next week as the models consolidate a little better.

The only fly in the ointment right now is an extended run of southerly winds as the western flank of the trough stalls along the coast, and then a front pushes up from the south on Thursday and Friday. I’ll take a closer look at this on Monday though. 

Lastly, for the record, we'll probably see small long period S/SE swell across Northern NSW through the first half of the week originating from the tail end of a particularly strong though poorly aligned front south of New Zealand right now. However, this energy will probably come in below the size of the pre-existing E'ly and SE swells.  

Have a great weekend!