South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri August 9th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Increasing SE winds on the weekend with building short range swells 
• Building E swells Mon with winds swinging E’ly
• Large stormy E-E/NE swell Tues/Wed next week with onshore winds through the peak of the swell Tues/Wed
• S’ly change late Wed or Thurs as swells ease through Thurs/Fri
• Possible S swell later next weekend, check back Mon for updates

Recap

Small clean surf to 2-3ft both days, mostly short period SE-E/SE swell and offering up a few rideable weak options on the open beaches. Winds have been light SW-S early tending SE in the a’noon.

A few fun peaks at the usual suspects

This weekend (Aug 10-11)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. A high pressure ridge start to strengthen with a troughy area off the SEQLD coast focussing SE winds to a minor degree. We’ll see strengthening SE flow with just a brief window of morning SW winds and a small signal of local SE-E/SE swell to 2ft.

That size should bump up a touch into Sun as the local flow increases around the trough. Mod SE winds will freshen further though the day, reaching speeds stronger than Sat. That suggests a few small peelers on the Points but with size only in the 3ft range across the open stretches the sheltered Points will remain very small through the day. There will be some small S/SE groundswell in the mix but with S facing beaches blown out, it won’t be of much use.

Next week (Aug 12 onwards)

No change expected to the broad pattern next week with strong high pressure moving into the Tasman and a broad, deep E’ly fetch developing through the Coral Sea, with an embedded trough. Most of the swell energy from this system will be aimed at sub-tropical targets, and we will see some real size from the E as winds feed into the trough. Unfortunately, with a straight onshore flow for the peak of the swell. We should see improving winds on the backside of the swell event.

Small on Mon to start, with light S-S/SE winds but through the day we’ll see winds tend fresh E’ly, even E/NE south of the border. With those winds will come increasing E’ly swells, likely pushing up into the 4-6ft range by close of play. Even the most protected points will be blown out so keep expectations for quality pegged on the lowest notch.

Very solid and sizey E swells for Tues with a deep trough off the Wide Bay/CQ coast lending an almost cyclonic feel to the synoptic pattern and swells expected in the 6-8ft range with some bigger sets possible. Strong E/NE winds may tend more NE during the day, opening up a few select backbeaches for some semi-clean and very sizey surf.

The trough does look to dissipate on Wed so we should see a slight easing in size as windspeeds ease in the Coral Sea. Still very chunky and in the 6ft range at least, just easing a notch through the day. Winds still look robust from the NE-N/NE. A trough may bring a late S’ly change to the MNC or even North Coast but confidence is low on the timing so check back Mon for that. 

S’ly winds finally show up Thurs but the swell will have dropped substantially from the peak with 3-4ft surf likely on the Points.

Easing swells into Fri with light winds. We should see E/NE -E swells holding 3ft of surf so potential for fun waves is there, local sand banks permitting. They will have copped a hammering through the peak of the swell.

Further ahead, there is a frontal/low system traversing the Tasman Wed/Thurs week, with major models at variance over the strength of the system.

The more bullish GFS outlook would suggest a small pulse of S groundswell later Fri into Sat. 

EC then suggests a strong low pressure system moving into the southern swell window over the weekend with some strong S’ly groundswell expected up the pipe.

This is at odds with the GFS resolution which maintains a blocking high through the Tasman and a potential fetch off the North Island.

Low confidence with that level of model disagreement so we’ll flag these potential scenarios  for now and see how they look when we come back Mon.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!