South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 18th Feb)

Forecast Summary (tl;dr)

• Small easterly swell Sat, easing Sun
• OK winds (north of Coffs) early Sat, and most locations Sun
• Small weak surf early next week
• Building E'ly swells and winds from Wed onwards, peaking Fri/Sat with OK waves at sheltered spots

Recap

Easing E’ly swells over the last few days managed a few rare 2-3ft sets on Thursday, with most coasts abating to a slow 2ft by the afternoon where it’s held today. Surf size is smaller south from about Yamba. Coupla nice thunderstorms pushing across the Gold Coast right now!

This weekend (Feb 19 - 20)

A weakening trough moving up the NSW coast will peter out across the Northern Rivers on Saturday morning. Locations north Coffs should see light winds early on; south from here are more likely to be under a freshening S/SE breeze. All regions will see the wind pick up from this direction throughout the day, it’ll just be delayed further north. 

As for surf, I’m currently waiting for a small uptick in periods at the wave buoys, related to a minor strengthening of the trades south of Fiji over the last few days. I’m (still!) hopeful that this will allow the open beaches to nudge up into the 2-3ft range for Saturday, though this size range will only be found at exposed beaches (not really the outer points) and the sets will be slow and inconsistent. 

Still, with early light winds there should be some fun options for the dawn patrol.

Sunday looks troughy with light winds, probably onshore but not likely to be strong enough to cause any major problems. Surf size will remain small out of the east (down a smidge from Saturday, and still very inconsistent) but a small S’ly swell should provide occasional 2-3ft sets at a handful of south swell magnets in Northern NSW, generally those across the Mid North Coast. 

All in all, it’s looking pretty small and slow this weekend but there’ll be a few lil' waves at the swell magnets. 

Next week (Feb 21 onwards)

There’s a few flukey swell sources on the charts for next week; a couple of small south swells from migrating polar lows, and a deepening trough NE of New Zealand that may generate some minor east swell. 

Small residual surf will therefore play out on Monday and Tuesday, with northerly winds a risk for Northern NSW on Monday (SE Qld should largely be spared any major strength).

But really, this all of little interest to us when we have a more prominent local system on the boil.

To be fair, the models have completely wiped the prospects of a tropical cyclone in the Coral Sea this weekend. We’ll still see a developing surface trough, and it will most likely meander slowly southwards into our swell window early next week. 

The initial benefits will be a strengthening easterly flow between it and a stationary high in the southern Tasman Sea. This should happen around Tuesday, so Wednesday onwards is where we’re likely to see increasing easterly swells - though we’ll also see accompanying easterly quadrant winds. So, it’s looking like a round of typical windy summer swell for sheltered points. 

Surf size is expect to plateau around Friday or Saturday, probably in the 4-6ft range at exposed beaches throughout SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, wth a little less size across the Mid North Coast, though there’s certainly a chance that the trough may enhance local winds inside our near swell window (above model forecasts), which could result in an upgrade for some locations in the near vicinity. 

The longer term period suggests we’ll see yet another continuation of activity in our eastern swell window into the following week, maintaining elevated wave heights from this quadrant for some time yet. It’s been (and continues to be) quite the summer of surf!

See you Monday!