South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Mon 9 Aug)

SE Qld Forecast Summary (tl;dr)

• Better angled SSE/SE  swell slowly easing through Tues and Wed. Onshore winds from the E to NE (variable in parts early)
• Small amounts of short period, peaky E’ly tradewind swell from Tues, provide small but surfable waves, favouring Sunshine Coast, lingering at low levels through this week and fading into the weekend
• Small S swell pulse Sun for the Gold Coast, with SE winds

Northern NSW Forecast Summary (tl;dr)

• SSE swell slowly easing through Tues with better winds in the AM
• Small amounts of short period E’ly tradewind swell from Byron north from Tues-Fri accompanied by NE to N winds
• Small mixed bag Sat with SE winds developing
• Mod S swell pulse Sun with SE winds
• More S swell next week.

Recap

Clean leftovers on Saturday provided plenty of fun beachbreak options on SEQLD beaches with the usual suspects seeing the most size. NENSW S facing beaches still had plenty of 4ft surf with a fair amount of juice through most of the day. Light morning land breezes tended light NE'ly in the a'noon. Sunday saw a brief window for most of NENSW before a vigorous S'ly change worked it's way to the border by mid-morning. There was a mix of leftover S swell and long period S in the water with smattering of S'ly windswell in the mix. Much less size in SEQLD with just a few clean leftovers for the mop up Sun morning before the S'ly change arrived. 

Onshore SE/ESE winds today have confined surf to protected locations where small amounts of SSE groundswell provided some clean peelers. Bigger, messier surf was on the menu in NENSW where 3-4ft surf was on offer at exposed beaches and semi-protected Points.

This week (Aug 9-13).

After a month or more of a mostly W’ly flow across the lower and central Tasman the prevailing feature for the first half of this week is a large, dominant high pressure system sitting roughly due East of Sydney and slowly making its way across the Tasman Sea. 

August is normally a time of intense W’ly flows across the SE of the country so it’s unusual to see a large high directing onshore winds up the eastern seaboard. The good news for SEQLD surfers, and to a lesser extent in NENSEW is the tradewind flow off the top of the high is expected to provide some useful surf from the eastern quadrant this week, with another strong high repeating the dose next week.

Recapping our current SE swell source from Fridays notes and a small but intense low formed in a trough East of Tasmania on Saturday,  intensifying a long fetch of mostly gale to severe gale SW winds that tracked NE towards the North Island. Weekend ASCAT (satellite windspeed) passes confirmed this fetch and the current pass shows a very large area of gales adjacent to the North and South Island, aimed mostly at South Pacific targets. 

Energy radiating from this source fetch is expected to see a slow tail off in wave heights through tomorrow, with some rideable leftovers Wed, but you will have to deal with onshore winds.

Slightly increased period tomorrow suggests SSE/SE swell should puff up a notch into the 3-4ft range at NE NSW breaks with S'ly exposure, grading smaller 3ft in SEQLD at swell magnets (smaller elsewhere). Winds are a bit dicey but high res wind models suggest a brief window of SW winds, particularly on the Gold Coast. It may well have some leftover lump and bump from todays SE/E winds.

In conjunction with easing 3-4ft surf through Tues at magnets, with some leftover 2-3 footers on Wed from the SE we’ll see the tradewind swell start to build later Tuesday, as SE/ESE winds in the Coral Sea extend in a wide band from New Caledonia down to the Fraser Coast. 

This broad tradewind fetch isn’t anything amazing, but with a persistent coverage of 20-25 Knot winds Tuesday into Thursday we should get a fully developed sea state, which is the maximum amount of energy that can be imparted into the ocean given a certain wind speed. That should see a pulsey, peaky 2-3ft surf develop through Tuesday and hold through Thurs, likely a bigger 3ft on the Sunshine Coast due to the proximity to the fetch. 

You’ll have to work with less than ideal winds though. The general flow will be E through Tuesday, clocking around NE Wed/Thurs but remaining light enough to work with as the high moves E and local pressure gradients slacken. In short, plenty of peaky, fun beach break to work with if you aren’t too fussy.

That front pushes a brief fetch of W’lies through Bass Strait overnight Wed into Thursday, weaker and briefer compared to previous fetches in the last month. That should generate a minor S pulse, just enough for a surfable 1-2ft wave Friday at S facing beaches, although with winds clocking back to the W it might be worth a paddle to end the working week if you’ve got the right board for the weak surf on offer.

Tradewinds weaken by Fri and into the weekend, but remain in place so a slow decline in surf can be expected from Friday into the weekend.

This weekend (Aug 14-15)

Small mixed bag on Sat, as leftover peaky E swell and small S swell trains for NENSW provide some weak surf in the 2ft range. SE winds are expected to develop as a new high pressure ridge noses into the region. 

Sunday looks a better bet for NENSW with a more substantial S’ly pulse tied to the passage of a deep polar low and front centred around 55S tracking below Tas on Fri13th. This swell will be a notch below  last weeks S’ly swell but is expected to provide 3ft surf at S facing beaches in NENSW Sun morning. Likely just making an impact on Gold Coast S facing beaches during the day with some 2ft surf. Winds will be an issue with a moderate SE flow expected to develop as the new high pressure ridge strengthens.

Next week (Aug16 onwards)

Further fronts push under Tasmania on the weekend and early next week. A following front to the Fri/Sat pushes through south of 55S with a very zonal or even NW tilt to the wind alignment and doesn’t look to be a useful swell provider for SEQLD/NENSW.

The next one in the series tied to a polar low passes the Tasman sea pipe Mon into Tues with a more favourably angled SW fetch and seas in excess of 30ft. The fetch is still aimed at New Zealand and Pacific targets but radial spread away from such a large, oceanic storm is expected to see another moderate pulse of S swell Wed next week. We’ll keep expectations hosed down due to the Zonal nature of the fetch and look at another modest round of S swell in the 2-3ft range at S facing beaches in NENSW.

Of more interest for SEQLD is another large high tracking E of Tasmania early next week and driving another broad coverage of the Coral Sea with SE Tradewinds. 

Increased Tradewinds and teleconnection between the Coral Sea and the South Pacific is an indicator of a potential developing La Nina, which is hopeful new for SEQLD surfers. 

We’ll need another look at it Wed before making a call with model divergence being an issue. GFS is very much more bullish on the tradewind strength next week, suggesting a fun round of 3-4ft surf, while EC is much more subdued, pegging wave heights in the 3ft range. Either way, there’ll be more peaky surf from the E next week. More on Wed.