South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales (issued Friday 18th April)

South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales by Ben Matson (issued Friday 18th April)

Best Days: Easter Sat/Sun: Large, strong SE groundswell with NW tending SW winds. Smaller surf in SE Qld but still quite strong. Sun: easing SE swell and a building S'ly swell in the Mid North and (later) Northern NSW Coasts. Best conditions early. Mon: rapidly easing swells with good winds early. 

Recap: Consistent SE swell all week in the 3-5ft range at exposed locations, smaller in SE Qld. Early offshore winds Thurs tending S'ly, early offshore winds today tending E'ly.

This weekend (Apr 20-21)

What a great run of swell we’ve had this week. And it ain’t over yet, with a very large SE swell due to arrive on our doorstep in the next twelve hours.

Without repeating the detailed notes of the last week surrounding the development of the responsible weather system (a merger between ex-TC Ita and last weekend’s Tasman Low), it’s worth noting that the ASCAT satellite returns - which confirm wind speeds at the ocean’s surface - on Thursday morning came back showing that the core fetch was a little stronger and broader than I had anticipated in previous notes.

What this means is that the stronger winds will have generated slightly larger waves with slightly higher swell periods than previously thought. This translates to a bigger swell at the East Coast with a slightly longer interval, and also a slightly earlier arrival time.

It now looks like the leading edge will push across the greater NSW coast this evening, with the biggest waves expected at the coast between dawn and midday Saturday. 

Size wise, I’ve upgraded the peak of the swell by a couple of feet - the biggest surf will probably occur across the Mid North Coast (6-8ft at most open locations, possibly as high as 10ft at a handful of swell magnets), with marginally smaller surf in the vicinity of 5-6ft across Northern NSW, sometimes throwing up the odd 8ft set across the various swell magnets and offshore reefs. As per usual, expect smaller surf at protected locations.

Across SE Qld, wave heights will taper off in size due to the swell direction, however beaches with a high degree of southerly exposure should see occasional 4-6ft waves but it’ll be much smaller on the points, somewhere in the 3ft+ range and rather inconsistent at times.

As for winds, a fresh SW change will make its way up the coast during the day. We’ll see freshening NW winds prior to this - mainly in SE Qld and Northern NSW - but the SW breeze should kick in by late morning/early afternoon. The Mid North Coast should see a much shorter window of W/NW winds ahead of the SW breeze. 

On Sunday, the SE swell will ease rapidly but it’ll be replaced (across the Mid North and Northern NSW) by a building S’ly swell that should produce sets to 3-5ft at south facing beaches by the afternoon. Unfortunately, this southerly swell won’t make it very far past the border (it’s not expected to arrive here until late in the day anyway) so SE Qld will be relying on the easing SE swell on Sunday.

There should still  be plenty of fun waves in most areas though, with light variable winds up until about lunchtime when a fresh NE sea breeze will kick in.

Next week (Apr 22 onwards)

Rapidly easing swells from both the east and south will pad out Monday morning, and from then onwards we’re looking at an extended period of quiet surf across the East Coast until next weekend.

Another strong front will traverse the waters well south of the Tasman Sea on Sunday, kicking up a small long period S’ly groundswell forthe Mid North and Northern NSW Coasts on Tuesday afternoon but at this stage it doesn’t seem that there’ll be much size in it (owing to a predominant W’ly storm track in the Southern Ocean).

Elsewhere, our swell windows are expected to remain on the quiet side for quite some time. So make the most of the Easter holiday swells as it could be back to the high volume fish from Tuesday onwards!