South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed April 24th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Fun sized, slowly easing E/SE-E swell through Thurs with improving winds opening up beach break options
• OK morning winds Fri AM before S’lies kick in with some short range S swell in the a’noon
• Fun weekend with S swell favouring NENSW and light winds
• Small E swell persists over the weekend , possibly up a notch Sun
• Small early next week 
• SE-E/SE trade swell from Tues next week
• Checking for trough in Tasman next week- possibly stronger E/SE swell if it develops
• Monitoring remnants of low near North Island for development in the swell window - low confidence, check back Fri

Recap

Plenty of fun sized surf on the Point yesterday, mostly in the 3-4ft range under SE tending E’ly winds. Cleaner conditions today with light winds opening up beach break options and size easing back into the 3ft range (still the odd bigger 4ft set) across most of the region. 

Not everywhere was good, but there was some real quality around this morning with offshore winds

This week (Apr 24-26)

The sharp trough in low pressure moving NE of Tasmania is generating a fetch of gales tracking through the southern swell window, with a following long, broad fetch of S’ly biased winds moving NE through tomorrow, setting up a series of S pulses in the run up to and over the weekend. A weakening trough of low pressure near New Caledonia is seeing easing E swells across the sub-tropics. A monster high (1037hPa) moves into the Bight tomorrow and slowly weakens as it enters the Tasman on the weekend, bringing light winds from temperate NSW right up into the sub-tropics.

In the short run, we’ll see continuing fun sized E swell hovering around 3 occ. 4ft with clean morning conditions. A robust S’ly change is expected to push up the coast reaching the MNC early morning, mid-late morning across the North Coast and lunchtime or just after for the SEQLD border. Once that wind kicks in there’ll be some small clean peelers on the Points. A late kick in new S swell is likely across the MNC, possibly showing just before dark around Byron-Ballina. 

Friday looks reasonable as a range of mid period and longer period S swell trains generated by the proximate and deep fetches make landfall. Along with small E swell we’ll see S swell to 3-4ft across S exposed breaks in NENSW, smaller in SEQLD. Mod/fresh S’ly winds will see most of the surfing done on Points or semi-sheltered break walls. 

The weekend will be cleaner if you want to wait for better conditions.

This weekend (April 27-28)

Still looking fairly good for the weekend,  as high pressure moves across Southern NSW and lighter winds establish. We should see light land breezes both days, with a slight S’ly bias Sat (W/SW-SW) and more true W’ly Sun, with a’noon S/SE’ly breezes Sat, tending SE on Sun. The exception will be the Sunshine Coast with a stronger S-SE flow that will likely prevent much of a morning land breeze from developing. 

Sat has plenty of S swell, a mix of mid and longer period stuff with sets  in the 4 occ. 5ft range at S exposed breaks in NENSW, smaller 2-3ft in SEQLD at S facing beaches.

By Sun we’ll see less energy in the water, offering inconsistent 3-4ft sets at S facing beaches in NENSW, smaller 2ft in SEQLD dropping back to  through the day.

Both days will see traces of E swell 2ft+ Sat, with a little kick to 2-3ft likely Sun as the remnants of the low flare up on the way down to the North Island.

Next week (April 29 onwards)

Light SE winds to start next week, as a high pressure sits in the Tasman. There will be a SE flow in the Coral Sea but generally contracting northwards during Mon/Tues. It should be of sufficient strength to hold 2ft of E/SE swell early next week.

Low pressure remnants N of the North Island (mentioned above) look to quickly duck behind the shadow of that swell blocking Island but we’ll keep an eye on it and update Fri. There is a possibility it could flare up on the edge of the swell window and supply some quality E swell mid next week.

A front and trough looks to reinforce S-SE winds Tues or early Wed with an increase possible in short range SE swell. If the trough deepens we may see an even bigger increase in SE-E/SE swell . We’ll revise that on Fri but it looks windy away from the Points as a minimum at this stage.

Windy SE-E/SE swells later next week as another major high well south of the Bight shifts E and a series of fronts sweeps across the lower Tasman. That should see moderate S swells through the second half of next week for NENSW with an onshore SE flow due to the southwards positioning of the dominant high pressure ridge. We’ll keep eyes on the charts for any possibility of a trough deepening into a low pressure system in the Tasman but at this stage there’s nothing concrete to report on.

Check back Fri for the latest updates.