Southeast Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 8th August)

Best Days: Sat: building long period S'ly tending S/SE swell with good winds. Only small in SE Qld though. Sun: steadily easing S/SE swell with good winds (only small in SE Qld). Tues/Wed: another strong S'ly swell, OK winds at dawn (only small in SE Qld). 

Recap: A fun mix of E’ly, SE’ly and S’ly swells on Thursday with good small waves in SE Qld (along lovely sanded points), with the swell direction becoming more dominantly south into Friday, and easing a touch. 

This weekend (Aug 9-10)

Plenty of strong south swell for the weekend in Northern NSW. However, based on observations in southern NSW today, there may be a slightly longer delay on this swell filling into the North Coast throughout Saturday. It’s likely to reach the Mid North Coast during the morning, and will probably reach the Far North Coast after lunch ahead of a peak in size late in the day. Exposed south facing beaches in Northern NSW should peak at 5-6ft at the height of the swell late in the day, but it’ll be much smaller sat locations now open to the south. A steady easing trend is then expected through Sunday.

SE Qld won’t pick up much of this new swell due to its southerly direction, so expect persistent small waves all weekend away from the swell magnets (initially, a small mix of southeast and south swell from the last few days).  Also in the water on Saturday will be a small long range E’ly swell generated by the distant fetch way out neat Tahiti earlier this week. However no great size is expected from it.

Winds are looking good all weekend, generally light and variable Saturday with a westerly tendency on the Mid North Coast on Sunday. 

Next week (Aug 11-15)

Another strong front and low will round the Tasmanian corner over the weekend, driving a southerly change across the southern NSW coast overnight Sunday and into Monday. This will build a local southerly swell for Northern NSW during Monday but with accompanying gusty southerly winds and subsequently poor surfing conditions. No great size is expected from this source in SE Qld but a very small late arvo kick along the semi-exposed points is a possibility (they’ll fare best under the southerly wind regime too).

A stronger southerly groundswell component emanating from the parent low pressure system (much further south) is then due to build throughout Tuesday, peaking overnight before easing slowly Wednesday. South facing beaches in Northern NSW should see solid 5-6ft surf at the height of this next pulse, but a persistent S/SW airstream will maintain poor conditions at exposed breaks and it’ll be much smaller at those spots offering protection form the wind. Early SW winds are possible in a few locations so this will be worth maximising at the semi-exposed points along the Northern NSW region.

Again, the dominant southerly swell direction won’t allow for much size in SE Qld away from the swell magnets so expect very small waves about the southern Gold Coast points (say, 2ft tops) and semi-exposed Sunny Coast points. 

Another front due to push through the lower Tasman Sea on Wednesday will then renew southerly swell through Thursday, before easing on Friday. 

Longer term (Aug 16 onwards)

Nothing major on the long term charts right now, however a continual stream of vigorous fronts below the continent should maintain plenty of south swell through the following weekend and into the next week. One particular system I’ll be keeping an eye on it a strong polar low modelled to track below Tasmania (off the ice shelf) later Wednesday and Thursday that could be associated with an amplification of the LWT over New Zealand longitudes later next week, and could therefore be the source of some impressive long period S/SE groundswell into the longer term. But more on that next week.