South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by James Casey (issued Wednesday 10th March)

Best Days: NE swell for Mid N Coast Friday and Saturday. Longer Period S swell for Mid N coast Sunday. Not looking great for N NSW or SE QLD.

Outlook

• NE swell for Mid N Coast Friday and Saturday
• Long period S swell for Mid N Coast Saturday late easing Sunday 
• Weak E trade swell for SE QLD and N NSW from Thursday into weekend
• Larger S/SE pulse next week

Recap

The S swell hung around and went a little more E providing 2-3ft waves for most of the region yesterday. Winds were out of the N for SE QLD making it best in northern corners of the open beaches, bumpy elsewhere. N NSW and the Mid N Coast had W/NW winds for most of the day creating nice conditions.

Today the swell has dropped a bit, it’s more like 1-2ft with a smaller E/SE swell but winds were light and offshore early creating decent conditions on a larger board. The high tide made it seem pretty close to flat but there were still small waves. Winds swung E/SE for most locations, Ballina remained SW for a little longer, around mid morning and now it’s just small and bumpy so not really much to get excited about

The end of this week

We have a broad high pressure system straddling the southeast of the nation and extending into the Southern Tasman over the next few days. A trough will extend to the coast and create a wet couple of days for NSW. This trough will  inch the ridge of high pressure and help whip up some NE winds and a subsequent NE swell for the Mid N Coast. Elsewhere will remain pretty small and gutless with a weak E trade swell.  

Tomorrow we will have lighter more variable winds although with a building NE flow. Nothing special as the waves stay pretty small and weak.

Friday we will see these NE winds continue, whipping up a small NE wind swell for the Mid N Coast, reaching about 2ft by the afternoon. You’ll need to head to a northern corner though for better conditions.

The NE swell will ease into Saturday for the Mid N Coast but a longer period S groundswell will show up late Saturday afternoon and begin to ease on Sunday. 

I wouldn’t expect anything widespread, as it’ll only really affect the Mid N Coast, but there’ll be the odd 3ft set at S swell magnets. 

This source of this S swell is a tricky one to identify. A polar low, currently SW of Tasmania, will generate the swell and it'll follow the great circle path up to our coastline. It'll be inconsistent due to the long distance it has covered but it'll be powerful. 

On Saturday winds will be light and N/NW in the morning before tending NE in the afternoon.

Sunday will see NW winds early before a S change begins to make its way up the coast, hitting the Mid N Coast and stalling around the middle of the day. Further N winds will remain out of the NW early before tending NE into the afternoon.

The new week 

The S change will continue to filter into N NSW early on Monday bringing strong S/SW winds across NSW. 

Winds will be SW ahead of the change with the strong S change reaching SE QLD by the late morning and really filling in into the afternoon.

By the afternoon winds will be strong out of SE across the entire forecast region. It’ll whip up a 2-3ft wind swell but it’ll be too chopped up to really make the most of it. 

Further ahead a SE swell could provide some moderate sized waves later in the week but it will depend on where the trough deepens in the Tasman. Don't get too excited though as at this stage it looks like winds will limit options to protected southern corners.