More south swell on the way
South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 24th August)
Best Days: Tues: solid S'ly tending S/SE swell in Northern NSW (much smaller in SE Qld, with a delay), plus generally good conditions. Wed/Thurs/Fri: smaller from the S/SE but generally clean in the north with light winds. Wed has a risk of S'ly winds in Northern NSW. Sat: building S'ly swell in Northern NSW (very small in SE Qld).
Recap: Small leftover S’ly swells provided fun early Saturday waves across south facing beaches in Northern NSW, with peaky 2ft+ sets and offshore winds. Size eased through the day, ahead of a fresh, unusual S/SE swell on Sunday generated by westerly gales pushing off the NSW coast on Saturday. This swell didn’t favour many beaches, but sets between 2ft to almost 2-3ft were reported at a handful of reliable south swell magnets. This swell eased slowly into today but has been overtaken by yet another S’ly swell, this time generated by a strong front and low below Tasmania. South facing beaches in Northern NSW have built from 4-5ft to 4-6ft through the day (with a delay on this in the north) and the acute southerly swell direction has resulted in long breaks of tiny conditions throughout SE Qld.
The dawn patrol at Coffs
Early Monday lines at D'Bah
Monday morning sets at Snapper Rocks
Small surf early Monday on the Sunny Coast
Feathering lunchtime sets at Coffs
This week (Aug 25 - 28)
Judging by the swell trend across Southern NSW - which is still on the way up - we’re not likely to see a peak from this event until Tuesday afternoon. In fact, some locations should see size persisting through Wednesday morning before a steady decline kicks in for the rest of the week.
Wave heights should reach 5-6ft+ at south facing beaches south of Byron, but the crucial aspect of this swell for SE Qld’s surf potential will be its direction. We really need more S/SE in order for most beaches and outer points to maximise the size potential, and this will occur across the back half of the swell event due to the way the source front/low has pushed through the Tasman Sea.
So although I’m still expecting 2-3ft sets across the outer Gold Coast points (and 4ft+ sets at exposed northern ends and south swell magnets), this size range may not quite be in the water early Tuesday. However winds will remain light all day so there’s no need to rush for the early session anyway. Across the Sunny Coast, expect a little less size overall (than the Gold Coast) but there’ll be decent options at south friendly beaches (protected spots will remain tiny though).
The slow easing trend through Wednesday will be accompanied by generally light winds in the north though a weak, shallow front may clip the Mid North Coast during the day and perhaps the Northern Rivers, swinging winds to the south and freshening.
Thursday and Friday should see a levelling of south swell across Northern NSW, thanks to two sources - a modest SW fetch exiting eastern Bass Strait later Tuesday, and its strong though poorly aligned parent front, passing below Tasmania. This should maintain inconsistent 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches both days, with perhaps a few bigger waves at times on Friday though most other beaches will be quite a bit smaller. Light winds and sea breezes are expected both days.
Across SE Qld, the S/SE swell from Wednesday will ease back through Thursday, still enough for some 2ft sets at exposed northern ends but much smaller elsewhere, and Friday it’ll be very small at most spots. A developing ridge through the Coral Sea may generate a small spread of short range E’ly swell for the region (mainly Sunny Coast) but I don’t think it’ll amount to much. Light winds and sea breezes will pad out the rest of the week here.
This weekend (Aug 29 - 30)
A significant cold front will cross the Tasmanian divide overnight Thursday, rocketing into the lower Tasman Sea into Friday and providing a strong boost in S’ly swell overnight Friday, building across Northern NSW on Saturday (arriving after lunch in the Far North).
At this stage the source fetch will be moving quickly through the swell window, so there’s a good chance it’ll offer only a brief peak in size. Early indications are for 4-6ft sets at south facing beaches (south of Byron), with much smaller surf elsewhere.
I’m not liking this swell much for SE Qld thanks to the way this front passes quickly to the east, so the best we’ll get will be a brief flush of 1-2ft sets at the outer Gold Coast points, bigger near 3ft at exposed northern ends but smaller across the Sunshine Coast.
Rapidly easing surf is then due on Sunday (though initially some strong leftover sets in the north), with winds swinging to the north and freshening. So, aim for a Saturday session at this stage.
Next week (Aug 31 onwards)
More strong fronts are expected through the lower Tasman Sea next week, maintaining the southerly swell regime for some time. It’s too early to pin down specific events, but next week does look pretty active with no shortage of size on the cards.
See you Wednesday.
Comments
Really does seem like the seasons are being pushed further back recently.
First time this winter we've seen acute south swells dominating the forecast with no easterly swell in sight. Been a great year of surf, hopefully the La Nina eventuates and we get a great summer to back it up with!
Strong lines across the southern Gold Coast this morning.
Gee dbah looking the goods, only 1 point working south of byron this morning and its packed, did a lap of the coast early and nothing looking any good.
I don't know about that...finally seeing a little more south swell energy in the water at dbah and you can see how much of an (detrimental?) affect the sand relocation out of the bar and into the outside has on the inside shape. Weird doubles ups lovers end. Be interesting to see what happens when it picks up again this arvo.
Edit: much better on a higher tide
D'Bah is looking pretty bloody good right now. One set, two waves.
Yeah it was really good, went out between 11 and 1 & safe to say the queries i may have had dissipated quickly
Patience, virtue etc at Currumbin.
Good morning Ben,
A quick one - How come Swellnet has 4 cameras pointed at the same area (Currumbin, Alley, Laceys, South Palm Beach)?
More cameras, more ads, more money. Business worth more when they sell to Surfline. Ben retires and surfs everyday :)
I completely support Ben's retirement plans, well played! Although, all 4 cameras are behind the premium paywall, and I don't see any ads...
More ads? Erm, all Currumbin cams are behind the paywall mate. So, we don't make any more money. In fact, it costs us a lot more more money for the extra cameras and bandwidth.
As for retiring and surfing every day, well... I don't want to burst your bubble, but the online publishing biz isn't quite what it seems.
I was asked this about another location, and the response is the same for Currumbin (which I've repurposed below).
Panning cams are great because they can look from left to right, and zoom in and out. But, over time I've found that they often look at parts of the wave that are not breaking. Therefore, it's more efficient - and more useful - to have several fixed cams.
For example, many of our cams in SE Qld will be positioned at the right part of the wave at high tide, but as the tide drops and the wave breaks wide of the bank, it falls outside of the view of the Surfcam (which is instead looking at whitewater lines, or flat sand).
This means someone has to log in to the cam at various times of the day to move the view around, which is a bit of a pain - and if no one is around, it means the cam view is useless.
So, to solve the problem of the last fifteen years where we receive emails "can you please adjust the cam so it's looking at the break a bit better", it's much better to have a couple of cams.
Also, all Currumbin cams are behind the paywall and are therefore only available to a small percentage of viewers.
I was just kidding legend. My second guess is middle age men on Stand Up Paddle boards are more wealthy, and the alley is full of them, so Ben is refining his target market to these subscribers for them to watch replays of themselves dropping in on each other.
Then retire ;)
All good mate.
I know there seems to be a lot of SUPs in the water these days - and there certainly has been a marked increase over the last few years - but the reality is that it's probably just a couple of dozen in the surf zone across the Goldy.
And, at 22c per day (actually, much less than that once fees are taken out), it's going to take a subscription swarm of biblical proportions to fund a retirement plan.
There are a lot of ways to do it.
Find your passion and find some work (or create) in that field. Or find work that you don't mind that marries up with your lifestyle and pays for the outside of work passions.
Have you found immersing yourself in surf culture / forecasting for 'work' has had any expected or unexpected effects on your lifestyle or enjoyment of surfing?
Definitely has an effect on the way you think of surfing. And, I surf a lot less than you might think (though, that's got nothing to do with Swellnet being surf related, and everything to do with running a small business).
I wouldn't have assumed you surf all day everyday. In fact the opposite. There aren't many people running their own business' that can say that have a lot of spare time on their hands.
In what way has it affected your view on surfing ?
Like any other recreational pursuit that becomes a full time job, surfing has has lost some of its more alluring aspects. Surfing is no longer a form of escape for me, as it was when I worked at the superrmarket, or was at Uni, etc.
It's no different to the way I perceived live music, after ten years of daily grind playing gigs, recording, doing stage for touring bands etc. After a while you're unable to walk into a venue and be easily impressed or have a good night out, because you're assessing the mix, looking at the stage setup, noticing the guitarist is out of tune, pissed off that band X got the support slot when someone else should have, yada yada.
Based on some of the screen grabs that impress you these days, I can't imagine how little it took to impress you in the past hahaha ;)
I'll cop that :)
Hahaha. He's admiring the pixels ;)
Thanks for the reply, Ben.
That makes sense. TBB explained in a thread a couple of months ago how drastically the Alley through to southern Palm Beach changes due to seasonal sand dredging. I guess this only compounds the variation in what field of view is most appropriate for the camera.
What a fcking joke!!
Edit, this was in response to the above Currumbin pic.
Edit edit - does anyone fcking work on the gold coast anymore? I was at North Burlz this morning around the same time and it was a circus along the beach strip/path there with every man woman and child there.
I asked the same question in Tugun this morning.
Dbah 10:45am replay 9:30 in, don't see that too often.
Thanks for sharing Sprout!
I wonder if he/she would be uneasy about being alone that far out. I know I would. That river mouth is a playground for Tigers and Bulls...
Those waves would make for a cool story, nevertheless!
Reminds me of outside corner!!!
I can't find the thread where we were discussing sweeps, but today is a classic example of what I was saying about S'ly winds and sweeps. Plenty of swell today from the south but no south wind late yesterday or today and the offshore current is next to zero.
https://www.qld.gov.au/environment/coasts-waterways/beach/monitoring/wav...
As opposed to Aug 23/24 when we had lots of wind from the southern quadrant especially to the south of us. Current was 4 times stronger then than today.
I’d had a think about your theory and although I’d say it has merit, however today I know of two spots that were horrendously sweepy.
North or south of Byron?
North
Don! I was thinking about this exact convo this morning, whilst I paddled my arse off battling an insane sweep. FWIW I initially agreed with your premise but today threw that theory out the window.
Ok. Back to the drawing board then. Although today was clearly just an inshore sweep as the wave buoys have next to no current.
Could have been infragravity waves.
Please explain?
http://www.coastalwiki.org/wiki/Infragravity_waves
25-250s period? When did we last see these swell periods on the east coast of Aus?
But you might be onto something here Ben with Edge Waves:
"Approximately shorenormal waves result in an equal distribution of infragravity edge waves along the coast, but with obliquely incident waves and the breaking-induced alongshore current an asymmetric distribution in dominant propagation direction is created. The presence of a sandbar may cause infragravity waves to become trapped on the bar, refracting from one side to the other side of the bar."
I can feel a sweep article coming on, Craig's brain must be tingling right now. And the 'sweep' title pun possibilities will be endless.
Zero sweep at my local today, I reckon there was actually a very mild reverse sweep.
yep, no sweep yesterday either
Fark their was a hectic sweep at palmy today.. not just from the rip bowl but the whole length of the beach from the acute swell Angle.. only small surf too.. 2-3doot max
That doesn’t stack up??
Sweep was insane where I surfed yesterday. Couldn’t get to the top.
So, anything from "no sweep" to "insane sweep" reported yesterday.
Sounds like the usual surf report feedback.
"My local was 6ft and off the hook"... "You kidding? It was flat here all day."
or 'you missed it' even though you looked and it was crap deciding not to go out.
well my take is that sweep is a function of :
Beach angle: -that the angle that the swell hits that part of the Coast. i..e south swell hits more front on down Freeride and andym's way, reducing sweep - especially if they surf a beachie/reef. points down there might be different. Palmy on the GC has a serious sweep from any angle between SE-SSW. I do note less sweep the further out we are - So maybe generally because the angle is more acute on the GC and SC from south swells sweep is worse than down south?
- second - local beach bathymetry - any local beach indentation where the swell has to wrap around generally increases sweep.
- random unknown reason - where the complexities of ocean currents/swell result in unpredicted sweeps/swell hieghts/angles etc..
anyway further ideas Ben?
In the past couple of east swell's there were wicked sweeps, where you wouldn't normally expect as much. That's why I asked the question and it didn't seem to make sense.
I think from everything people have posted it seems that no one really knows. It's probably multi factorial and very region / spot specific as well.
It is a nice surprise though when you've got decent swell and no sweep. An uncommon occurrence on sandy coastlines unfortunately.
Agree with all of this in general. Lots of unknowns though. And as mentioned before, infragravity waves contribute a lot too.
Doesn't explain unfortunately why one day the sweep is horrendous and the next day it's not at exactly the same beach and tide.
East swells in Burleigh this year have had horrible sweeps. I assumed it was from Tallebudgera Creek mouth being very shallow and the outgoing tide had a very small mouth directing water north through the lineup, but in saying that it was still there on the incoming tide, just not as bad.
Any thoughts?
yeah well sweeps are always worse the next day when your arms are shot :)
I haven't surfed Palm Beach since earlier this year cause it's gone to shit, but around Feb during the cyclone swell season, the sweep would be hectic. You would paddle at near Laceys and get swept down to the groyne pretty quickly.
Big sweep yesterday around Nobbys but similar to other long period S swells we've had this year. Only upto 2ft, maybe got 1 3ft wave, but you could feel the energy in the water. I think over the course of the session I was swept up the beach more then 1km. All the waves were rights though and I stopped trying to go against it after a while and just floated down.
It was dogshit this morning, super choppy and not as much push as yesterday. Both days were big waits between sets. Beggars can't be choosers I guess and it's the first time I've been in the water in 2 weeks! Hanging for a bit of E swell though.
I was just south of you yesterday and the sweep was next to nothing. I also surfed north of you yesterday and found most of the beach was no sweep but the waves there were straighthander closeouts whilst I then paddled to the south where the waves looked to be more peeling and I couldn't even stay on that bank as the sweep was pushing me north (onto the bank of straighthanders). So it's clearly local bathymetry related.
I also think in cases such as yesterday further south, it would've been double the size (at certain locales) of the goldy and much more water moving around with it. It was no surprise to see a sweep with DOH sets yesterday.
See the sets at the Tweed Bar yesterday? Easy 4-5ft, maybe bigger. Impressive stuff.