South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed 19th Feb)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Smaller again on Thurs with early light winds, tending SE in the north later and freshening
• Slowly rebuilding trade swells in SE Qld (smaller in Northern NSW) Fri with fresh SE winds
• Fun weekend for the points with fun trade swells and SE winds
• Fun tradeswells most of next week, building late in the week
• Plenty of tropical potential for the long term- check back Fri for latest updates

Recap

Strong and energetic surf yesterday, although very pulsey,  mostly from the S/SE in NENSW, with some longer range E’ly swell in the mix favouring SEQLD. Size in the 4ft range in SEQLD was augmented by S/SE swell which showed strong 5-6ft sets in NENSW under light winds.

Size/consistency has eased back a notch today, although there are still some strong sets to 5-6ft across NESW under a light E-E/NE flow. All in all some good to great waves around if you could find a bank or point handling the size. 

Still pumping when the sets came this morning

This week (Feb 19 - 21)

The swell generating systems - the Tasman low and South Pacific low- are now out of the picture, having moved eastwards and dissipated so the trend is downwards as these duelling swells ease out. A weak front sliding under Tasmania and moving into the Tasman o/night into tomorrow will supply some minor S swell later this week. Following that, we’ll see a fallow period while we wait for the next round of Tradeswell to develop next week, possibly enhanced by tropical low pressure systems in the South Pacific and Coral Sea.

In the short run, no great change to the outlook from Mon. Today’s easing S/SE swell supplies some increasingly inconsistent leftovers in the 3 occ. 4ft range with E-E/SE swell in the 2-3ft range also on the fade-out.  Early light land breezes will clock around SE’ly fairly early (between 7-9am) before strengthening to mod paces as a new high pressure ridge builds up the coast in the wake of the frontal passage.

The new high moving into the Tasman Friday sets up quite a strong ridge into Fri with a decent SE surge up the coast and extending out into the adjacent coastal waters. Typically these SE surges see short range swell build quite quickly so we can expect a modest increase in short range swell into the 2-3ft range, mixed in with some minor S swell to 2-3ft in NENSW. Most places will blown out under a mod/fresh SE flow, with small peelers on the Points the best of it. 

This weekend (Feb 22 - 23)

With the high pressure system in the Tasman and a broad SE-E/SE  wind field covering the Coral Sea we’ll see a modest signal of swell from the same direction all weekend that should hover around the 3ft range, possibly with a few bigger sets. Periods will be quite low so expect much smaller surf into more sheltered, inner points which will be cleanest under the prevailing SE winds.

We may see winds slacken off enough for a morning land breeze on Sun, more likely on the Gold Coast southwards. We’ll finesse that on Fri.

Otherwise, surfable waves both days, mostly favouring the Points,  without anything too noteworthy as far as quality goes. 

Next week (Feb 24 onwards)

By Mon next week we should see a series of tropical lows in the monsoon trough, with a low off the N. QLD coast, and one or two located SE of Fiji. We’ll be watching them closely for development and surf potential although at the moment the strongest winds are monsoonal NW winds and thus not of much use.

In the short term the strong high in the Tasman will have set up a broad wind field through the Coral Seas and Northern Tasman which will supply continuing E’ly trade-swells swells next week, with subtle ups and downs but holding in the 2-3ft range with occ. bigger sets. 

Winds look to be typical summer Sou-easterlies, possibly tending more E’ly with southerly latitude into NSW. 

The Fijian low (which may form a tropical cyclone) tracks SE early next week. We’ll update Fri and Mon but we may see a signal of longer period swell from this system as it moves through the swell window. Possibly adding some inconsistent 3ft sets into the mix late next week.

More reliable looks to be swell from the Coral Sea low (possible TC) which becomes slow moving next week, possibly on a slow S or SE track.

That’s likely to generate some bigger E’ly swell late next week and into the weekend, provisionally in the 4-6ft range, although confidence is still very low this far out. 

Pencil it in for now, and we’ll see how it’s looking on Fri.

Seeya then!