South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 20th May)

Best Days: Very good waves most days, just a little wind affected at times (mainly on the Mid North Coast). Should be a great weekend of surf just about everywhere though.

Recap: E’ly swells eased temporarily to about 3ft on Tuesday before rebuilding late yesterday with a new pulse of longer period E’ly energy, maintaining 3-5ft sets across exposed beaches today. Winds were moderate to fresh from the SE quadrant on Tuesday across most regions north of Coffs (lighter to the south) but today has seen lighter, more variable winds across most coasts today and thus improving conditions, though the swell lines have been disjointed thanks to the mix of swells in the water. 

Superbank looking fun - and relatively empty! - today

Low tide runners at Byron

This week (May 19 - 22)

The current round of E’ly groundswell is expected to reach a peak tomorrow, though it probably won’t push much (if any) higher than what we have now. As such, expect open beaches to maintain 3-5ft surf through Thursday before easing a little on Friday.

As mentioned in Monday’s notes, the long range swell will be very inconsistent so most of your surfing will be done at the smaller end of this size range. It’ll be smaller running down the points.  

The only risk Thursday is some form of northerly breeze. The Mid North Coast stands to pick up the most strength from this direction though we’ll see all locations veer slowly from the north through to the north-west during the day, ahead an overnight W/SW change. Expect light variable winds across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW early morning (this will offer the only window for the points). Otherwise aim for the beaches after lunch once the wind has gonemore counter-clockwise.

A deepening Tasman Low off Southern NSW from late Thursday will drive fresh W/SW winds across all coasts on Friday, and they’ll be strong to gale force across the Lower Mid North Coast, due to its proximity to the low. 

Initially, we won’t see much new S’ly swell from the Tasman Low, because it’ll hug the mainland to begin with and thus will display a very narrow fetch, most of which will be tucked up inside the Hunter curve. 

That being said, there are three areas of interest to watch for on Friday (in addition to the slowly easing E’ly swell). The first will be south swell magnets south of about Coffs, which may pick up some flukey sideband S’ly swell from the aforementioned S’ly fetch inside the Hunter shadow.  Most of the swell generated will bypass the Mid North Coast but you can’t rule out one or two swell magnets picking up occasional sets, say in the 4-5ft range (for reference, I’m expecting 6-8ft surf across Southern NSW and up to 10ft+ in the Hunter). 

Also, gale force SW winds extending off the the Hunter and Mid North Coasts early Friday have the potential to generate a unique (though small and flukey) swell spread back into a small stretch of Northern NSW into Friday afternoon. It's a low confidence event and there'll be more dominant swells in the water anyway, but is worth keeping an eye on.

Also, a new long period S’ly groundswell generated by a deep polar low south of the continent over the last few days will make landfall late in the day - probably just the Mid North Coast - and this could also generate some 4-6ft sets at south swell magnets in the few hours before dark. However this looks like being a Saturday event for most of Northern NSW. 

So for the most part expect inconsistent E’ly swells but it’ll be worth keeping an eye to the south. 

This weekend (May 23 - 24)

The atmospheric models are starting to converge on a similar solution for the Tasman Low, which increases confidence in the surf outlook. 

Essentially, the low will remain slow moving all weekend through the Tasman Sea, and gale force S’ly winds on its western flank will generate two days of large southerly swells for Northern NSW. 

In actual fact the low will linger in our south and south-east swell window through Tuesday of next week so it’ll actually generate energy until next Thursday, which is a seven day swell event all up.

In addition to the local energy, Saturday will also see a peak in long period energy from the polar low. Though again, it’ll be hard to spot these lines. 

As for size, we’re looking at around the 5-6ft+ range at south facing beaches (south of Byron) early Saturday, easing a little through the day before rebuilding strongly some time later Sunday thanks to a secondary front wrapping around the Tasman Low. I'll need to fine tune the specifics on this trend on Friday though, as it's likely to move around between now and then. Anywhere not open to the south will see much smaller surf from this source.

This south swell won’t do much across SE Qld due the acute southerly direction (maybe some 1-2ft sets at open beaches, bigger near 3ft+ at exposed northern ends) however the good news is that we have a quality round of E’ly swell on the way, sourced form a deepening trough north of New Zealand.

At this stage both days are looking at inconsistent 3-5ft sets at exposed beaches (smaller running down the points) with long breaks between waves but clean conditions under all-day offshores. There’ll be a few lully periods at times between swell events (there’s a few pulses on the way) but you should be good to go pretty much everywhere this weekend. 

In fact winds look like they’ll cooperate across most pf Northern NSW this weekend too. Locations south from Coffs will be at risk of periods of gusty SW thru’ S/SW winds but on the balance there’ll be more than enough decent options to go round.

Next week (May 25 onwards)

Sunday’s resurging southerly swell will peak through Monday before easing into the afternoon. Early indications are for 6-8ft sets across Northern NSW’s south facing beaches though we’ll need a few more days to have confidence in this. 

The main part of the Tasman Low will weaken early next week, though will concurrently undergo two area of new development from Sunday - initially a strong SE fetch off the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island, and then a small band of E’ly gales exiting western Cook Strait (see below). 

This should maintain strong swells through Tuesday (6ft+) and Wednesday (4-6ft), with even Thursday likely to hold out around 4-5ft.  It’s a big call but I really like the look of these slow moving patterns as eventual wave heights are often exaggerated from stationary sources. 

Of more interest is yet another strong round of E’ly swell from the trough north of New Zealand, that will reach a peak in strength later Friday (see below), resulting in a strong new swell arriving overnight Sunday, and peaking Monday. I think this energy will push slightly higher than the weekend’s energy and could see some exposed beaches holding 4-6ft, though this won’t really be noticeable across Northern NSW (due to the pre-existing large S’ly swell). However it should favour SE Qld quite well - though surf size will be smaller running down the points and the inconsistentcy won't favour crowded locations as well as consistent trade swells generated closer to the mainland.

This E’ly swell will then steadily ease from Tuesday onwards. 

As for conditions, Monday looks a little blustery with the Tasman Low’s last hurrah driving gusty S/SW winds across most regions, but they’ll become light and variable from Tuesday onwards as the low clears to the east. 

As such, there’s no need to rush head-first into the weekend’s offerings, as there’ll be great waves from this synoptic sequence well after the main event, throughout mid-next week. 

See you Friday!