South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wed 17th Aug)

Forecast Summary (tl;dr)

• Small east swell Thurs building through the day, great conditions
• Solid east swell Fri/Sat, easing Sun/Mon
• NW winds Fri favouring the beaches
• SW winds over the weekend, favouring the points (and beaches too)
• Long range E'ly swell Tues with offshores

Recap

Fun small waves on offer for the last few days, mainly east swell on Tuesday in the 2ft+ range with some small additional south swell filling in across Northern NSW today. Light variable winds and sea breezes Tues, freshening SW tending S’ly winds today.

This week (Aug 18-19)

All looking pretty fun to finish the rest of the week with light winds under a dominant high pressure system, and a building swell from the eastern quadrant.

Today’s south swell will slowly ease through Thursday but the east swell should maintain inconsistent 2ft+ sets at most beaches in the morning, with generally light winds and sea breezes. 

Model guidance has the periods building slowly through the day in response to stronger energy from the trough block, so a slight increase in size is warranted for the afternoon (perhaps 3-4ft by mid-late afternoon, biggest south of the border), however overnight Thursday and more specifically early Friday is where we’ll see the arrival of a more defined swell front from this source.

This should increase most beaches into the 4-5ft range, with sets pushing 4-6ft at the swell magnets, mainly south of the border. 

The only down is for those looking to surf the points: winds will steer to the NW as a front approaches from the south. Early morning will see the least strength but it’ll still probably put some ribs up the faces.

However this direction is ideal for most open beaches so there’ll be waves almost everywhere else. 

This weekend (Aug 20-21)

Looks like a great weekend of surf.

A second round of E’ly groundswell from the trough block will push through on Saturday, maintaining Friday’s size through the first half of the weekend. Expect the upper end of 4-6ft sets to be found in Northern NSW, with slightly smaller surf in SE Qld around 4-5ft at exposed beaches. 

Even better, winds will veer light SW in the wake of the Long Wave Trough so the points should offer clean conditions, though it’ll also be light enough to maintain good options at the beaches.

To that end, this groundswell event (from Friday onwards) will probably display a 'common' level of consistency, i.e. not as frequent as juiced up trade swells, which means there won't be as many waves as we are often used to seeing under easterly swells. This means the points can be more difficult to surf as there are less waves to go around (with weekend crowds too). So, I recommend scouting out the beaches.

Freshening S’ly winds are expected at some point on Sunday - following early light offshores - and size will slowly throttle back, but there’ll still be stacks of options across all coasts. Shore range south swell will accompany the afternoon’s freshening wind but it won’t be the dominant source of surf.

Next week (Aug 22 onwards)

Our primary swell sources will ease through the start of next week, and an amplifying Long Wave Trough will freshen NW winds across the region, offering clean beachies though there is a risk for brief periods of fresh northerlies, mainly on the Mid North Coast Monday afternoon. 

Whilst the weekend’s swells will ease to an inconsistent 3-4ft on Monday, we’ll see yet another east swell push through, from an impressive sub tropical low in the South Pacific, which will result in long breaks between sets but a slight increase in size into Tuesday. Let's peg size a little more consistently in the 4-5ft range for Tuesday.

Strong though acute south swells are then expected across Northern NSW through the back half of the week (from the backside of the LWT sweeping across the eastern states) as the easterly swells ease steadily. 

See you on Friday!