South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 16th October)

Best Days: Sat AM: small clean easing swell. Sun: light winds south from Coffs, small mix of swells. Next week: tricky outlook but most days will have waves, best chances south from Byron. 

Recap: Yet another round of unseasonably good E’ly swell has graced the region for the last few days, holding 3-4ft on Thursday and still managing to push 3ft+ this morning before fading a little through the day. Both days were clean early with afternoon sea breezes though today’s afternoon session has been a little more problematic with the breeze a little stronger, and out of the NE (yesterday was SE in many areas). A southerly change has just nosed into the Mid North Coast this afternoon though apart from an initial hour of gusty conditions, it’s not particularly strong. 

Clean Friday dawn patrol at Snapper

Decent Tweed options early Friday

This weekend (Oct 17 - 18)

There’s one main window of opportunity across the broader coast this weekend, and that’s Saturday morning.

The current southerly change across the Mid North Coast will evaporate overnight, and a weak pressure pattern across the coast early Saturday will create light variable winds early morning.  However, it won’t last long, as an approaching trough will strengthening northerlies into the afternoon. We’ll probably start to feel their effects from mid-late morning onwards so don’t leave it too long for a surf. 

Wave heights from the existing east swell should slowly ease back from an inconsistent 2ft, maybe 2-3ft at exposed beaches to 2ft or less through the day, smaller along the outer points. We’ll also see a small mix of SE swells from a variety of fetches NW from New Zealand over the last few days. Exposed beaches in Northern NSW should see inconsistent 2-3ft sets all day and probably into Sunday too, but it’ll be smaller elsewhere (i.e. SE Qld).

Late afternoon will see a brief flush of south swell across the Mid North Coast that’ll probably peak everywhere else overnight, before easing steadily through Sunday. This was generated by the trailing fetch behind today’s southerly change, associated with a fast moving front through the lower Tasman Sea, which also had a decent polar low attached to the ice shelf. Don’t expect much more than inconsistent 2-3ft sets at south swell magnets. 

As the approaching trough pushes off the coast into Sunday, we’ll see persistent northerly winds north from about Yamba, but pockets of light variable winds starting to appear throughout the Mid North Coast. Early morning may see a brief window of light NW winds on the northern Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast but it won’t last long. 

However there won’t be much swell around anyway. Leftover, inconsistent S’ly swell from Saturday will ease through Sunday (biggest at south swell magnets south of Byron around 2-3ft), and we’ll probably pick up some local N’ly windswell at exposed beaches beaches to 2ft tops. 

Next week (Oct 19 onwards)

Next week has a lot of potential, but the models are highly divergent at the present time so confidence is only low as to how much surf we’ll see. 

First up, there’s still a chance for a small long period E’ly swell, from an impressive though distant cut off low south of Tahiti earlier this week. No major size is expected though.

Sunday’s trough will evolve into a surface low off the Far Southern NSW Coast at some point, but it’s not clear how strong it’ll be, nor where it’ll track. Our surf model is underpinned by the GFS atmospheric model which isn’t expecting much to happen, so consequently the resulting surf forecast is small through the first half of next week. 

Conversely, the European model solution intensifies the low and tracks it up the NSW coast, before settling as a weak trough in the central Tasman Sea mid week. This would result in a punchy south swell (for Northern NSW) on Monday and then a reasonable spell of useful E/SE swell for the rest of the week. 

The easiest option is to split the different, and anticipate a small south swell for Monday and then minor residual energy for the rest of the week, but I have a feeling we’ll end up seeing much better surf than that. Of course, local winds are equally important, so any decent swell increase Monday will likely be accompanied by freshening southerlies, ahead of two days of light variable/seabreeze patterns, and then a resumption of freshening northerlies from later Wednesday through Thursday and Friday.

On top of that we have a bevvy of unusual long period swells on the way. The first will arrive on Monday, sourced from a small polar low forming underneath the continent today that'll project nicely through our south swell window. Inconsistent 2-3ft sets are expected later Monday and into Tuesday at south facing beaches south of Byron.

Looking even further afield, and a series of incredible Southern Ocean lows migrating from Madagascar longitudes this week - and continuing over the weekend - will set up a couple of very long period groundswells for the southern states (leading edges of 20 seconds). Because the associated storms will travel at relatively low latitudes, they'll eventually sneak into our acute south swell window so we should see some occasional sets at times across Northern NSW.

Though, the inconsistency will be enormous - maybe fifteen or twenty minutes between waves. 

The first swell is due around Wednesday (easing Thursday), and the second swell is expected around Friday (easing Saturday). I'll have more details on these in Monday's notes, but for now there's a reasonable chance for stray 3ft sets at south facing beaches south of Byron each day. It won't be worth travelling for though; these south swells are two of the flukiest you'll ever find. 

Anyway, I gotta say confidence is pretty low for every single swell source next week so I’ll have a squiz at the charts over the weekend and will update in the comments below. 

Have a great weekend! See you Monday.