South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri 6th Sep)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Background E’ly swell supplies a few small, very inconsistent sets into the weekend with mod/fresh NW-N winds
• Small S swells next Tues/Wed next week
• We should see some small E’ly tradeswell developing later next week favouring the Sunshine Coast
• Possible sizier S swells developing late next weekend and into the following week as trough deepens into Tasman low- check back Mon for latest developments

Recap

Easing S swells with some E sets mixed in saw some fun 3-4ft surf in NENSW yesterday, a notch smaller in SEQLD. Conditions were good for the early with light land breezes before N’lies kicked up and freshened during the day. A small, grovel blend on offer his morning with NE windswell and the odd set from the E to 2ft with the very occ. bigger set. N’lies were up early so best conditions were at backbeaches.

Somne workable peaks for the dawny at NENSW backbeaches

This weekend (Sep7-8)

No great changes to the weekend f/cast. An approaching trough and front will strengthen the N’ly flow over the weekend. We should see mod/fresh N’lies both days with a brief window of NW-N/NW winds early.Not much swell to work with- just a small grovel blend of minor NE windswell and the occ. set from the E, mostly in the 1-2ft range with a 2-3ft set once a while. 

Similar for Sun surf-wise, or even slower as NE windswell drops out leaving a small signal of 1-2ft swell from the E. Suitable for a grovel at open beaches early before backbeaches takeover. Typical spring surf conditions.

Next week (Sep9 onwards)

A northwards morning trough brings a shallow S-SE change into Mon as the front passes into the Tasman, likely ending up as weak NE-SE seabreezes in the a’noon. More small grovel surf on offer through Mon with the occ. 1.5-2ft set likely from the E.

A front passing under Tasmania Sun/Mon does offer some grounds for optimism with respect to wave models (see below). We’ll see some small S swell  later Tues across NENSW, with size hopefully getting up into the 2-3ft range at S facing beaches, likely not showing much at SEQLD apart from a few 2ft sets right on dark . Light morning offshore winds should tend to mod S-SE breezes in the a’noon.

That pulse then winds back through Wed with light morning winds tending E-E/NE in the a’noon. We should see workable 2-3ft surf at NENSW S facing beaches through the morning.

Small NE windswells and some minor E’ly tradeswell from the Coral Sea pad out Thurs and Fri with freshening NE winds. We should see a small, surfable signal of NE and E swells to 2ft during this time.

Later next week we should see a S’ly change from an approaching trough- possibly as early as Fri a’noon.

Models are still struggling to resolve this trough but there are reasonable grounds to suggest the trough may deepen and form a surface low in the Tasman late next week. Under this scenario we’ll see a sizey S swell develop as the low deepens, likely later Sat or Sun.
EC has more bullish outlook with the low remaining slow moving in the Tasman, reinforced by approaching fronts and buttressed by a strong high moving south of the Bight. That would give us days of sizey S swell into early week beginning 16/9.
GFS has a more mobile pattern with S swell dropping off quite rapidly next weekend and into the following week with some follow-up pulses.

At least it gives us something to look forwards to.

We’ll take a fresh look at it on Mon.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!