South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 27th February)

Best Days: Sat/Sun: early morning across the beachies.

Recap: Fun mid-range E’ly trade swell on Thursday (2-3ft sets at most beaches), increasing a little more today with the addition of an inconsistent long range E’ly groundswell (3ft, occ 4ft sets at exposed spots). Light winds early, tending onshore during the days and freshening.

This weekend (Feb 28 - Mar 1)

Overall, we’re looking at an easing trend this weekend. Today’s combo of E’ly swells are expected to slowly ease, so Saturday morning will have the most size. 

A modest fetch of SE winds through the southern Coral Sea will strengthen this afternoon and then ease through the weekend, but winds are expected to be under 20kts so we probably won’t see much more than a couple of feet concurrently from this new source (and only at exposed beaches north of Byron). 

So, the combined energy should generally hover in the 3ft range early Saturday (maybe a few stray 3-4ft sets in SE Qld early morning) before easing to 2-3ft during the day. Expect slightly smaller waves through Sunday, and overall locations south of Yamba will see smaller wave heights than to the north. 

Local winds will be mainly light to moderate from the E/NE (more N/NE along the Mid North Coast), however a decent period of light variable winds (i.e. probably offshore) should persist through until about mid-morning. So, the mornings will certainly be the best time to aim for a surf. 

Next week (Mar 2 onwards)

The trades are expected to remain active north of New Zealand through the weekend and next week, however strengths are still pegged to be only 20kts or less. Given that the bulk fetch will mainly be positioned in our mid-to-far swell window, this unfortunately means that there’ll be a significant loss of size as the energy propagates towards the mainland. 

So, with Sunday’s surf easing a little more through into Monday we’re looking at an extended period of small beach break surf for most of next week - mainly slow, weak and inconsisent energy from the eastern quadrant, just a couple of feet on the more favourable parts of the tide. 

There are however a couple of regions to keep a close eye on for Monday’s updated notes:

1. Southerly change advancing along the NSW coast on Monday. It probably won’t generate much swell for Northern NSW (and definitely not SE Qld) but it may trigger a building ridge across the Qld coast that could supply some short range energy to the region, plus a gusty SE breeze (around Tuesday). Right now the models aren’t very confident on this scenario but there’s a chance for an upgrade over the coming days.

2. A strong series of deep Southern Ocean lows/fronts through the southern Tasman Sea from late Wednesday onwards. These are likely to generate plenty of S’ly swell for Northern NSW, but as we well all know, such patterns are very poorly aligned for SE Qld so we won’t see much size north of the border. At this stage Friday will herald an initial windswell increase (4-5ft sets at south facing beaches in Northern NSW) with a similar sized groundswell for next weekend. SE Qld will be much smaller from this source though, probably just a foot or two at best away from the swell magnets. 

Otherwise, despite a period of inactivity appearing across our eastern swell window, there is still some potential that we’ll see some developments north and north-east of New Zealand mid-week, resulting in an easterly swell for next weekend. It’s too early to have any confidence on the likely size right now so I’ll take a closer look on Monday.