Tradeswell is the main focus of the weekend, which is good because it’ll offer a wide range of surf possibilities across SE Qld.
The forecast notes will be nice and short for today, because the weather maps are devoid of anything interesting.
A second phase of long period swell is expected to arrive later today, which should keep most areas flush with a similar level of inconsistent swell through Tuesday.
A second phase of long period swell is expected to arrive overnight (watch for the Cape Sorell and Pt Nepean buoys to crack the Tp 18 second+ mark again this evening), which should keep most areas flush with a similar level of inconsistent swell through Tuesday. Conditions are looking great with light N’ly winds right across the region.
The reason this is worth noting is that the storm force SE fetch mentioned above lies across and to the south-east of this possible ‘giant ice floe’, meaning that the resulting swell generated by this SE fetch would probably become heavily attenuated by it.
If you pay close attention, you’ll notice an area with no wind barbs (white patches) upstream from the SE fetch. This is quite unusual - scatterometry is not affected by cloud cover - and suggests that there may be a broad area of drifting sea ice sitting well north from the Antarctica ice shelf
Today's swell will fade to nothing over the weekend, with nothing major due until Tuesday.
Tiny weekend ahead of a new long-range and very inconsistent W/SW groundswell for Monday and Tuesday.
Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 9th May)
Best Days: Sat: decent S/SE swell in Northern NSW with good winds across the Mid North Coast (probably OK early morning in the Far North, and also in SE Qld - but it'll be much smaller north of the border). Sun: steadily easing swell with good winds in most regions.
Plenty of fun waves are expected on Saturday. Today’s swell will continue to slowly abate in size but the morning should have good 2-3ft+ waves at beaches with some southerly exposure.
