North Stradbroke - Pt Lookout Surf Forecast and Surf Report

G’day, Rusty here. Let’s have a proper look at what’s shaping up for Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island.

Straight off the bat, I gotta tell ya – it’s a rough start and a long wait. The first decent surf is a solid week away, and even then, it’s not without its challenges. For the first few days, we’ve got a mix of strong winds and building swell, but it’s all being blown to bits by near-gale and gale-force offshore winds. Thursday the 16th through to Monday the 20th sees swell overhead and bigger, with combined energy readings climbing from 766 up to a massive 2550, but the wind is howling – 28 to 40 mph – making it near impossible to paddle into and the surf quality is poor. This is big, powerful, and dangerous. Only for experts, and even then, it’s a battle. For most of us, this setup looks more interesting for kite surfing than paddle surfing.

The gap drags on. Tuesday the 21st still has a solid 8 ft to 8 ft swell from the ESE, but the wind is cross-off, and the wave comment is still poor or marginal. The energy is still high – 1245 to 2214. It’s not until Wednesday the 22nd that the swell starts to ease back under 7 ft, but the quality remains mediocre.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. The first real standout comes on Thursday the 23rd morning. The swell drops to a clean 5 ft from the east, with a moderate offshore breeze from the SSE, and the combined energy is a moderate 548. The wave comment says “expect good surf conditions” – that’s the first time we’ve seen that. This is a point break, so it handles the east swell direction well, and the moderate offshore wind will keep it glassy and clean. The water temperature is about average for this time of year, so nothing unusual there. Crowds are sometimes a thing here, so you might have a few mates out, but for a midweek morning, it should be manageable. This is the best on offer in the whole window.

After that, Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th have some fun-sized options, with Saturday morning the 25th looking particularly promising – 5 ft from the east, moderate offshore, and a combined energy of 701, with the wave comment saying “expect very good surf conditions.” That’s a standout too. The period is 9 seconds, so it’s a bit of a short-period swell, but the offshore wind will keep it clean and punchy.

The tail end of the outlook, from the 28th onwards, sees the swell dropping back to waist-high or smaller, with periods increasing to 11 seconds – that’s longer period groundswell, which is better for this point break, but the size is small. The 28th morning has a 4 ft ESE swell with a moderate offshore, and a combined energy of 423, and the wave comment is “expect good surf conditions” – a clean, small-wave option for the logs.

Overall, it’s a rough start with a big, windy, dangerous swell, but the second week offers a few clean, offshore windows. The standout is definitely Thursday the 23rd morning, with Saturday the 25th morning a close second.

Rusty.

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