South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 17th October)

Best Days: No great days. Late Mon/Tues and maybe Wed for a small long range east swell, but it'll be very inconsistent at best.

Recap: Decent south swell across exposed parts of the Northern NSW coast on Thursday with early light winds and sea breezes. Much smaller in SE Qld. Fading south swell in all areas today although SE Qld seems to be picking up a small E/SE swell. 

This weekend (Oct 18-19)

Nothing too much to get excited about this weekend.

A strengthening ridge across the Queensland coast will drive freshening S/SE winds across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, and wave heights will remain small - just some residual south and east swell from today, plus some low quality S/SE energy originating from the ridge. Set waves will be biggest at south facing beaches but they'll consequently be wind affected.

Similar winds will influence the Northern NSW coast on Saturday, but they'll become confined to the Far North Coast on Sunday, resulting in an improvement across the Lower Mid North Coast for Sunday morning. Unfortunately, by this time there won't be much leftover surf - just a foot or two of mixed swells at exposed beaches. 

There's an outside chance for a brief window of light winds north of Coffs Harbour (and through to SE Qld) on Sunday but without any notable swell in the water it's not worth beelining for. As such, expectations should be kept pretty low all weekend.

Next week (Oct 20-24)

A gusty southerly change is due to reach the Lower Mid North Coast sometime mid-morning on Monday, before it advances north during the day, reaching the North Coast mid-late afternoon. The timing is still a little unsure right now; we may not see the change reach the Far North until after dark, and in fact it may very well stall south of Byron, and not push over the border at all.

In any case Monday's waves will be dictated by small residual swells and mainly light to moderate winds from the northern quadrant ahead of the change. These winds are unlikely to be sufficiently strong enough to generate any meaningful short range NE swell, so Monday's surf prospects remain low.

The fetch trailing Monday's change is not expected to be very strong nor very well aligned within our swell window, so wave heights won't become very large through the middle of the week. Tuesday should see a better quality south swell fill in throughout the day - probably after lunch - but it'll only favour south facing beaches in Northern NSW, with inconsistent 2-3ft sets at best (very little energy will make it north of Byron). This southerly energy will have originated from a secondary fetch southeast of Tasmania and will therefore be inconsistent when it arrives in Northern NSW.

However, of more interest to us is a small E'ly swell expected to arrive later Monday, ahead of a peak through Tuesday before easing Wednesday. This swell will have originated from an impressive fetch developing SE of Fiji at the moment (see chart below).

The latest model guidance has pushed this fetch further east (i.e. away from the Australian coast) than previously forecast, and the large travel distance will result in very inconsistent sets. However, exposed beaches in most areas should pick up 2-3ft at the height of the swell (probably Tuesday). Keep an eye on the surf cams on Monday afternoon though as the leading edge is due in then and there's a chance that surf size could punch above current model expectations.  Winds are a little unsure at this stage as models are suggesting we'll see another weak ridge push across the SE Qld region (which would favour semi-exposed points), however I'll take a closer look at this in Monday's notes. 

Otherwise, the rest of next week is still looking at a persistent coastal troughy pattern, with local fetches likely to contribute small short range energy for desperate surfers. I'll have more info on this on Monday.