South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 10th November)

Best Days: Tues: small building E'ly swell with a possible window across the semi-exposed points in Northern NSW behind a S'ly change. Wed/Thurs: good combo of east and south swells across most regions, with light winds in the mornings. Fri/Sat: easing S'ly and slowly building NE windswell in Northern NSW, but with tricky winds (mainly freshening NE tending S'ly in the south on Sat). Deteriorating options in SE Qld.

Recap: Saturday was rather uninspiring across most locations but Far Northern NSW and SE Qld picked up a small peaky E’ly swell on Sunday that coincided with a morning of light winds to create fun 2ft+ beach breaks at most open beaches. This swell has eased a little overnight and an early light window of NW winds has now given way to a freshening N’ly tending NE'ers, so conditions aren’t very appealing this afternoon.

This week (Nov 11-14)

Lots of swell due this week - nothing overly large but with several swell windows firing up at the moment, and winds looking favourable for brief periods, there should be some good surf just about everywhere at some stage.

The first swell due to arrive will push through on Tuesday, having been generated by a low pressure system deepening north of New Zealand at the moment. This system has been impressive to watch over the last week or so - barely registering in last Monday’s model runs but slowly improving its genesis and development with each successive model update. Consequently, the surf forecast from this system has been slightly increased each time (although, our internal surf forecast model output doesn’t seem to be resolving it very well). 

As such I’m expecting a slow increase in new swell on Tuesday ahead of a strong round of E’ly swell on Wednesday that should reach 3-4ft at most open beaches north of about Yamba (biggest in SE Qld). It will be rather inconsistent, but coupled in with a fresh S/SE change due throughout Tuesday afternoon and holding through Wednesday, there should be some good waves across the semi-exposed points mid-week. Keep an eye out for an early period of SW winds across many regions on Wednesday ahead of a moderate S/SE breeze redeveloping by lunchtime.

Tuesday does look a little dicey ahead of the change - it’s expected into Coffs early morning and Byron around mid-afternoon, so SE Qld will probably see below average conditions, depending on the strength of the preceding northerly wind (it may only be 10-12kts here, but this is right on the threshold where conditions noticeably deteriorate).

We may also see a small NE windswell across Northern NSW during Tuesday but it probably won’t be much more than a couple of feet at the swell magnets.

Wednesday's east swell should hold into Thursday morning before easing during the day, and we’ll see a return to the light NW tending fresh NE trend throughout the day (strongest across the Mid North Coast). So the early session should be good in SE Qld on Thursday.

Friday will then see both the east and south swell ease in size; the latter’s dropping trend should be arrested during the day by the arrival of a small final pulse off S/SE swell from the backside of the frontal passage, maintaining 2-3ft sets at south facing beaches. However gusty NE winds by this time will certainly limit the best surf to sheltered northern corners, of which they are in limited supply across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld.

This weekend (Nov 15-16)

Not much to get excited about at this stage. Models are suggesting a dominant N’ly airstream, and without any notable new swells in the water you’ll have your work cut out working around the swell magnets.

Friday’s strengthening nor’easters should whip up a local swell for Northern NSW on Saturday morning, up to 3ft at NE swell magnets in the south (smaller in the Far North and SE Qld). There’s likely to be some residual south swell in the water but the mid-week east swell will probably be all but gone by this time.

A shallow southerly change is modelled to reach the Mid North Coast in the afternoon but stall before it tracks anywhere near the Far North Coast, which may render little benefit to SE Qld surfers (not much swell is expected behind it either). 

Sunday is likely to see a return to the northerly pattern, and with only small waves on offer it’ll probably be a case of low quality peaky options at swell magnets. 

I’ll take a closer look on Wednesday but for now there’s really not much to get excited about.

Long term (Nov 17 onwards)

We’ve got another strong series of cold fronts due through the lower Tasman from Sunday night onwards, which looks like renewing south swell activity across northern NSW for the first half of the week. I’ll update this in more detail over the the coming days.