South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 7th November)

Best Days: Sun: small peaky waves across exposed beaches, early whilst winds are light. Tues/Wed/Thurs: fun east swell with good waves across the semi-exposed points under a S'ly breeze.

Recap: Small waves for the last few days with northerly winds Thursday preceding a shallow southerly change this morning (quite a few hours ahead of schedule). Certainly nothing to get excited about.

This weekend (Nov 8-9)

A few more lil’ tweaks to the weekend forecast. Wednesday’s model guidance had a ridge building across the Qld coast this afternoon, which was expected to whip a minor local SE swell for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. The latest data has slightly stalled and slowed the development of the ridge, and also weakened it a touch, which decreases its swell potential.

However at the same time the models have held a trough across the central Tasman Sea today, with 15-20kts of southerly winds aimed parallel to the Northern NSW coast. We’ll see some small side band energy filter into south swell magnets across Northern NSW (not much, just a foot or two) and conditions should be reasonable with early light winds tending SE in most areas during Saturday. 

Concurrently, a second ridge out in the central/northern Tasman Sea during yesterday and today has/is generating a small E’ly swell due to build on Saturday afternoon (mainly aimed at SE Qld and Far Northern NSW) before holding through Sunday. We won’t see a great deal of size - perhaps a few stray 2ft+ sets at exposed beaches - but winds will be light and variable early ahead of a NE sea breeze. 

So in short, not really much to get excited about but there’ll be some small peaky waves on offer across exposed beachies on Sunday morning if you’re keen for a paddle.

Long term (Nov 10-14)

We’ve got a couple of sources of new swell for next week. But first up, Monday is looking small and average with a peaky mix of small, low quality swells and a freshening northerly airstream preceding a S'ly change due sometime Tuesday.

Probably our most interesting swell window at the moment is out to the east, where a developing trough/low over the weekend (north of New Zealand) has been improved in the latest model runs - it’s now expected to sit in position for a good 48 hours, which greatly improves its swell generating potential.

It’s not a classic synoptic chart by any means however we should see new easterly swell pushing through on Tuesday, reaching a peak on Wednesday and even holding through Thursday morning before easing in size. Wave heights should reach somewhere between 3ft and very occasionally 4ft at the height of the event (sometime Wednesday afternoon), however we’ll see smaller surf south of about Yamba from this source. Set waves will however be very inconsistent due to the large travel distance between the swell source and the mainland.

The good news is that conditions are looking pretty good for the semi-exposed points later Tuesday and Wednesday (about the same time the swell is expedcted to peak), thanks to a southerly change which will dominate the region for a few days (timing on the change not yet confident but should be early Tuesday in Northern NSW and maybe the afternoon in SE Qld).

Apart from a few hours in the wake of the actual change, winds shouldn't be terribly strong in general and we may even see a brief period of early SW winds on Wednesday (ahead of a S/SE tendency in the afternoon). By Thursday we’re likely to be back to a northerly regime - especially across Northern NSW - so make the most of what’s in front of you earlier in the week.

Additionally, a series of strong fronts entering the southern Tasman Sea on Monday - associated with the coastal change - will generate a solid south swell for exposed parts of the Northern NSW coast. Furthermore, this frontal passage will occupy our southern swell window for a few days and should therefore supply strong swell through until Thursday or maybe even Friday morning.

We’re looking at set waves reaching 4-5ft+ at south friendly beaches at the height of this swell (probably late Wednesday or early Thursday), and fortunately due to the northern and eastern extent of the fetch we’ll see some energy pushing north of Byron Bay - possibly a couple of feet across the semi-exposed points in SE Qld. This should tie in nicely with the (bigger) pre-existing east swell to create a reasonable degree of consistency in the lineup, albeit mainly with small waves.

Wave heights will then trend downwards from both sources on Friday with northerly winds enveloping the coast. A secondary pulse of even longer range east swell - originating from a secondary phase of the same low responsible for the Tues/Wed/Thurs swell - may possibly arrive on Friday, but at this stage I don’t think there’l be a lot of size or consistency in it. So certainly aim to surf earlier in the week than later!

Long term (Nov 15 onwards)

Models are leaning towards a reasonably strong cold front across the SE corner of the country sometime around next weekend. If this happens we can look forward to another punchy round of south swell across the southern NSW coast early in the following week. More on this in Monday’s update.