South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri 1st Sep)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small, but fun E’ly tradewind swells boost a notch into the weekend as depression drifts down from South Pacific
• Late kick in S swell Fri for MNC as low pressure forms in Tasman
• Moderate S-S/SE swell this weekend, favouring NENSW for size with S’ly winds Sat, light/variable Sun
• Small S/SE swell persist into Mon with N’ly winds
• Small E/SE swell Tues/Wed, flukely winds, likely a S’ly change up to Coffs/Yamba
• N’ly winds episodes next week, with minor NE windswell likely
• Building tradewind swell potential for next weekend
• More S swell in the medium term

Recap

Winter goes out with a whimper with another day of small, weak surf yesterday in the 1-2ft range tops. Clean early before N’lies kicked in. Same again today to start Spring- small weak surf from the E primarily, with a max size of 2ft on the sets (mostly 1-1.5ft). Conditions were clean with morning offshores, tending to S’lies through the day. We should see a late a’noon building trend in S swell across the MNC, just reaching the Byron-Ballina region on dark.

Spring starts the same way Winter ended- with another small day on the beachies

This weekend (Sep 2-3)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. S swells will be the dominant force in the water through tomorrow, mostly mid period stuff whipped up by a proximate fetch of S-SSW winds generated by a front and trough of low pressure forming in the Tasman. The S’ly flow will still be entrenched tomorrow morning although we should see a brief period of SW-SSW winds early across NENSW and the Southern Gold Coast. Winds are expected to lay down through the a’noon as the low moves away and local pressure gradients ease but it won’t do much for S facing beaches where the majority of swell will be focussed. Expect size in the 3-4ft range across NENSW, smaller 2ft in SEQLD. There will be some small energy from the E filtering down from a fetch in the tropics which moves southwards over the weekend which should add some 2ft energy occ. 3ft. 

Sunday should see winds ease back through the day and tend to light/variable SE-NE seabreezes in the a’noon. Morning winds look to be SW although lingering lump and bump is likely on the more exposed S’ly facing coasts. Fun sized S-S/SE swell to 2-3ft should hold through most of the day, with fun amounts of E’ly to 2ft+ swell in the mix. Nothing amazing but there’ll be a fun wave to ride. 

Next week (Sep 4 onwards)

As suggested on Wed, the low in the Tasman does merge with a tropical derived low moving south over the weekend but the final product has been successively weakened over model runs. 

We’ll see some workable S/SE swell Mon, in the 2 to occ. 3ft range with a developing N’ly flow as another trough approaches from the W.

A fetch out of Cook Strait and adjacent to the west coast of the North Island looks weaker and more disjointed than even Wed’s outlook so swell from that source now looks to arrive in the 2ft range later Tues into Wed. Freshening N’lies Tues may whip up some NE windswell through the a’noon.

Wed may see a brief S’ly change although there shallow S’ly changes tend to stall on the North Coast. At the least it should disrupt the N’ly flow on Wed as the front/trough pushes into the Tasman.

The front is linked to a small low, which looks to get shunted away quickly to the SE, without much swell generation at this stage. We’ll see how it looks on Mon but for now, looks like easing swells from Wed. A N’ly flow, typical for Spring sets up from mid next week and offers up potential for some more small NE windswell Thurs, easing Fri. It’s marginal stuff at this stage, 1-2ft tops.

A long tradewind band in the South Pacific is not quite contiguous with a tradewind fetch in the Coral Sea next week (see below) but we should start to see some workable E/NE tradewind swell develop next weekend 9/10 Sep, provisionally up into the 2-3ft range.

 A larger frontal system looks to approach late next week, but it’s disconnected from the parent low. We may see some S swell late Sun or into Mon but it’s nothing major. 

Troughiness looks to persist in the Tasman later next week so there’s still a chance we may see some sort of low pressure spin up. EC suggests some kind of low pressure forming off the Gippsland Coast late next week. Given the recent record of constant model downgrades though we’ll keep a lid on froth and see how it looks on Mon.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!