South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday July 29th)

Best Days: Experienced surfers every day

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Large S'ly swell building today, easing tomorrow AM
• Reinforcing large S/SE swell tomorrow PM
• Oversized S/SE groundswell later Wed, peaking Thu AM, easing slowly into the PM, more noticeably into Fri
• Strong S/SW winds, tending SW for a period in selected spots each morning this week
• Easing mid-period S/SE-SE swell Sat, with a moderate + sized E/SE-SE swell for Sat/Sun
• Fresh S/SW tending S/SE winds Sat (SW selected spots early)
• W/SW tending SE winds Sun
• Slowly easing E swell next week

Recap

The weekend was generally tiny, but today we’re seeing a rapid jump in new S’ly swell across the Mid North Coast, making it’s way further north.

This week and weekend (Jul 29 - Aug 4)

These notes will be brief today as Steve covers the Olympic surfing event.

Buckle up, we’re in for a sustained runs of large, windy surf thanks to a significant, broad low pressure system dominating the Tasman Sea.

The low will go through multiple phases over the coming days, with the first phase being gale-force S/SW-S winds projected up the southern NSW coast last night and today.

As the low broadens and matures today, we’ll see an additional fetch of S/SE gales extending from Australia down towards New Zealand, reaching severe-gale strength off the southern tip this afternoon/evening.

This early phase should result in a strong, large surge of S’ly swell as we’re seeing today, peaking tomorrow morning (then easing) before the S/SE swell energy fills in through the afternoon.

Expect wave heights ebbing and pulsing between 8ft+ tomorrow on the south magnets, (1/3rd the size the size on the Gold Coast) while come Wednesday, the fetch of severe-gales off the southern tip of New Zealand surging slightly towards us should generate a larger pulse of S/SE-SE groundswell that should arrive into the afternoon on the Mid North Coast, later to the north and peak Thursday morning across most locations.

Strong 10-12ft surf is due across the NSW south magnets late Wednesday and Thursday morning with the Gold Coast likely to come in at 3-5ft across the points Thursday, with more size on the magnets (smaller Sunny Coast).

It won’t be until Wednesday that the low starts to weaken and move north, and with this we’ll see the swell slowly drop away in size and period through Friday, likely still 8ft+ across the magnets but easing.

Into the weekend the S/SE-SE swell energy should continue to ease from 6-8ft range, while some new E/SE-SE energy due to be in the mix Saturday afternoon/Sunday thanks to strong to near gale-force E/SE winds projecting off New Zealand’s North Island.

At this stage 4-6ft surf is likely, easing into early next week but we’ll review this Wednesday.

Coming back to the local winds and this week will see strong S/SW-S winds in general, tending SW for a period across selected locations each morning this week (especially from Wednesday onwards).

Come the weekend, fresh and gusty S/SW tending S/SE winds are due (likely SW early across most spots), with Sunday offering better W/SW tending SE winds.

All in all an incredible outlook of sizey swell for the experienced.