South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 22nd June)

Best Days: Tues/Wed: small clean surf at the swell magnets (mainly Northern NSW, tiny in SE Qld). Fri/Sat: building, solid (in the south) E/SE swell, easing Sun. Quite windy at times though.

Recap: Surf size panned out very close to expectations over the weekend, with easing E’ly swells from 3ft+ in SE Qld on Saturday, replaced by building SE swells to 2-3ft in Northern NSW on Saturday, ahead of a second stronger SE swell on Sunday that pulsed in the 4ft+ range at south facing beaches south of Byron (smaller surf elsewhere, and throughout SE Qld). Wave heights eased rapidly overnight - more so than forecast - back to a slow 2ft+ south of Byron and smaller north of the border. Winds were variable on Saturday and freshening northerlies created problems across some coasts on Sunday, but everywhere has cleaned up today under W’ly breezes. 

Small glassy leftovers at Coffs this morning

This week (June 23 - 26)

Looks like a couple of small days ahead. Then, it's going to get solid across southern locations.

A large, complex low system lies from Bass Strat through into the western Tasman Sea. However, at this point in time all of our swell windows are devoid of favourable activity, with winds around the low aimed in the wrong direction. 

As such, we’ll see small peripheral swells for the next couple of days, generally 1-2ft at open beaches and clean under moderate offshore breezes. Swell sources will initially include peripheral E/SE energy from a fetch exiting western Cook Strait on the weekend, a polar low under New Zealand supplying minor long range S/SE energy, plus some distant energy from the South Pacific. Expect long waits between waves. 

As a side note, model guidance is also showing a SW windswell across some exposed regions mid-week, but this is likely an overcall due to the close proximity of the local fetch and shouldn’t be relied upon.

Conditions look OK for most open beaches on Tuesday under W/SW winds, tending SW on Wednesday and Thursday as the low moves to the east. So, exposed northern ends may become bumpy through the middle of the week too. 

As the complex low moves east over the next few days, an E’ly fetch on its southern flank will gradually broaden, eventually intensifying off the NZ West Coast around Wednesday and Thursday (see below), generating a solid E/SE swell for Southern NSW that’s been pushed back a day since Friday’s forecast was prepared. We’ll see a smaller level of energy from this source across Northern NSW (and then again throughout SE Qld) due to its less favourable alignment. 

Thursday may see a small increase in SE swell across the Mid North Coast from the initial stages of these developments, but Friday is expecting to see steadily building size towards a peak on the weekend. Late Friday is on target for some 3-5ft sets at exposed spots south of Byron, but a gusty S’ly change is expected to push up the coast during the day, creating average conditions away from southern ends. This will also generate a short range S’ly swell. 

SE Qld will see very little surf from the S’ly windswell on Friday, and the SE groundswell will arrive later but should push 2ft+ across the outer points and 3ft+ at exposed northern ends late in the day. I'm not confident on the timing right now though, Saturday is probably a better bet all round for Gold and Sunshine Coast surfers.


This weekend (June 27 - 28)

Our E’ly swell will reach a peak on Saturday morning near 4-6ft across the Mid North Coast, 4-5ft across the Northern Rivers, and then 3ft+ throughout exposed SE Qld beaches (smaller running down the points), before easing slowly through the rest of the weekend. S’ly windswells should remain elevated around 3-4ft across Northern NSW’s south facing beaches, with smaller size north of the border. 

The main issue this weekend will be gusty S’ly winds in the wake of Friday’s change, anchored in by a strong coastal ridge. Therefore, only sheltered points and southern ends will have waves, and they won’t see quite the same size as exposed northern ends. 

Therefore, options will be limited this weekend but there’ll be plenty of windy waves on offer if you’re keen. 

Next week (June 29 onwards)

A passing cold front south of New Zealand on Friday is expected to stall another new low off the west coast of New Zealand's South Island on Saturday, generating a fresh SE swell for the East Coast around Monday. This system will be quite off-axis for our swell window but we should pick up some 3-5ft sets at reliable south swell magnets south from Byron (smaller in SE Qld). 

Let’s take another look on Wednesday.