Not a great weekend for waves with mainly small southerly swells expected to become wind affected from the north.
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As such the small reinforcing pulse expected later Thursday and into Friday will be a little smaller in size, and probably best suited to northern locations open to south swell.
You’ll be well advised to watch the surface obs in northern NSW on Tuesday, especially if you’re near the Gold Coast.
The fetch trailing today’s change looks pretty impressive on paper, however there is one key characteristic that will significantly limit surf potential. That is: the system is moving eastwards, perpendicular to our swell window.
Generally looks like a write-off on Thursday.
We’re still seeing a slow upwards trend in wave heights and this should plateau through Tuesday.
Should be some fun small trade swell around this weekend.
At the same time, a high in the Tasman Sea will firm up a ridge through the northern Tasman tonight and into Thursday, and this will generate a slightly better E/SE swell for the northern region.
Somewhere in the middle - a few hours prior to the change’s arrival - there may be a period of light variable winds as the trough slides across the coast but with only a small inconsistent southerly groundswell at the swell magnets, a minor level of trade swell and a small N’ly windswell in the water, I wouldn’t spend too much time chasing waves.
No changes to the forecast for the weekend.