Northern NSW and South East Queensland Surf Forecast (Fri 3rd Jan)
Something is finally lining up, in a week.
A blocking high in the Tasman with fronts being deflected away to the south, and trades along the nth, is the 2nd most reliable forecast I can think of. How about the reliability of a forecast for a blocking high in the bight, with fronts sliding up the EC?
Looking through my bookmarked pages, Figs 2 & 3 on this page http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/Interpreting_MSLP.shtml is what I'm more or less talking about, but from a point of view of surf forecasting obviously.
Another way of looking at it is...
Tradewind swells - Pretty reliable but often poor quality.
Cold fronts & their parent lows - Fairly consistent but can easily aim too far from the SW.
Tropical lows - pretty unreliable.
Northern NSW and South East Queensland Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 3rd January)
Best Days: Saturday afternoon at north-east swell magnets when the change hits, Monday morning, Wednesday in protected spots
Recap
Tiny average surf was seen across both regions yesterday and it's persisted into today.
This weekend (Jan 4 – 5)
Unfortunately there's nothing decent on the cards for the weekend with a junky and small NE windswell across the North Coast that will ease during tomorrow and then on Sunday a small S'ly swell should make it's way into south facing beaches but with onshore SE tending E/NE winds.
Next week (Jan 6 onwards)
Monday morning will be worth a look at south swell magnets on the North Coast with a fun 2ft+ wave expected with morning offshore NW winds.
Winds will be onshore though and fresh from the SE leaving protected points with the best waves.
The North Coast should see a secondary pulse of S'ly swell Thursday and fun levels of S/SE swell into the end of the week owing to a low pressure system moving into the Southern Tasman Sea Monday evening (attached to the bottom of the trough). This system will linger in our swell window through most of next week aiming a fetch of strong to gale-force S/SE winds through our swell window.
Winds look to linger from the S'th though which isn't ideal for locations picking up the most size.
Longer term the possible tropical developments to our north and east are still up in the air. We'll continue to keep a close eye on this though.