South-east Queensland and Northern NSW by Steve Shearer (issued Mon July 22nd)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Rideable S swell leftovers Tues with clean conditions in the morning, favouring NENSW for size
• Tiny/flat surf Wed apart from S swell magnets in NENSW
• Small peaky E’ly trade swell from Thurs favouring SEQLD
• Small tradeswell and some NE windswell extends into the weekend 
• Low confidence in outlook next week- possible low in Tasman with strong S swell or another undersized week- check back Wed for updates

Recap

Small S swells and offshore winds supplied fun waves over the weekend at NENSW S swell  magnets, although not much made it north of Cape Byron. A few 2-3ft waves were on offer Sat, extending into Sun with a late kick in size. Today is seeing stronger S swell to 3-5ft in NENSW at S exposed breaks with some 2-3ft surf at SEQLD S swell magnets. Conditions were clean early with morning offshore winds tending to light S’ly breezes, more mod up on the Sunshine Coast.

Small S swell getting north of the border, but not enough to disrupt the dredging of the bar

This week (July 22-26)

As outlined on Friday the Tasman Sea takes a breather this week with a large (1028hPa) high slowly moving over NSW and QLD to enter the Tasman through tomorrow. The remnants of the weekend’s front and low are weakening  and rotating out of the swell window as they sweep across New Zealand. Following that we’ve got a spring like week ahead with only some minor E trade-swell to offer up some rideable waves. Tiny surf looks to extend into the weekend with next week offering up a chance of a S swell to break the flat spell although there is substantial model divergence over a potential frontal intrusion into the Tasman.

Short term there should be fun leftovers from the S-S/SE at S exposed breaks tomorrow, favouring NENSW for size. Nothing major but we should see some 3 and very occ. 4ft sets at the best swell magnets early, 2ft in SEQLD before it eases in the a’noon. Nice and clean early with a SW flow before winds tend light SE. 

Wed should see the last of the S-S/SE swell with a few small leftovers to 2ft in NENSW, easing down to 1-2ft or less during the day. The best SEQLD S swell magnets may see a just rideable wave in 1-2ft range.  Early W/NW winds will tend NE’ly south of the border more E/NE in SEQLD and start to freshen a notch as the high moves out into the Tasman and an inland trough starts to approach through Western NSW.

N’lies for the rest of the week, stronger south of Ballina and more light/variable in SEQLD. This Spring type pattern should be accompanied by some small trade swell generated by a modest tradewind fetch developing S and SW of New Caledonia this week (see below). Sunshine Coast should top out the scale with mostly 2ft surf and the occ. 3ft set. A smidge smaller (mostly 2ft sets) on the Gold Coast and into Tweed-Byron. 

South of Byron we’ll see mostly NE windswell developing into the 2ft range later Fri. Nothing amazing but there should be a few small, surfable beachies on offer.

This weekend (July 27-28)

Nothing amazing but this small trade signal should hold a few 2 footers into Sat. Winds still look flukey with a trough potentially  bringing a weak S-SE change for Sat. If the trough stalls out, we should see weak N-NE winds.

Small again Sun with offshore winds tending S-SE as another weak front pushes into the Tasman. This is where our model divergence kicks in. EC is progging a much stronger, winter standard front through Sun that would see a late kick in new S swell possible across the MNC with a significant amount of size- up into the 4-5ft range at least and bigger into Mon.

GFS has a very different scenario with a weak front that skips away quickly to the NE, leading to tiny surf Sun, with a small pulse Mon.

Next week (July 29 onwards)

Low confidence on the outlook until we get some model agreement happening. Under the EC scenario we are looking at a slow moving low in the Tasman with a winter-calibre S swell event at least until mid next week. 

GFS would herald in more tiny surf until mid next week, at least. With the chance of more small trade-style surf later next week.

Both models are interested in an area of low pressure near Fiji later this week. It slides away to the SE on a sub-tropical ridge so swell potential is far from ideal, but it does show signs of deepening and forming quite an impressive system in the South Pacific. In the absence of anything major we’ll flag it for now and see how it develops. We may see some small, long range and very inconsistent E/SE swell from it. 

We'll have a better idea if the flat spell continues into next week on Wed, so check back in then.

Seeya then.