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

Best Days: No great days. 

This week (Nov 18-22)

*Forecaster notes will be very brief this week as Craig’s away, which has increased my forecast workload. Sorry for any inconvenience*

Yeah, we’re all sick of the northerlies. And sure, winds have swung a different direction today (woohoo! easterly!), but the bad news is that we’ve go an extended period of northerly winds back on the agenda. 

The next few days are your only real option to score any meaningful surf, and even then SE Qld will generally miss out. We’ve got a small southerly swell pushing up along the NSW coast right now and exposed south facing beaches should pick up occasional 3ft sets at times through Tuesday and Wednesday.

A coastal troughy pattern will produce moderate onshore winds that might be light and variable for a few hours in selected regions, however these persistent onshore patterns are sometimes hard to dislodge by way of local land effects (as is common under stable high pressure scenarios) so keep your expectations low.

From Wednesday afternoon we’ll see NE winds redevelop properly and from Thursday onwards we’ll be at the head of a lengthy period of northerly winds that’s likely to persist through the weekend and even the start of next week. Only the Mid North Coast is likely to see periods of variable winds at times as the coastal trough has a greater influence in this region. However if there’s an upside (and there really isn’t one), it’s that we’ll see some local windswell across the region. 

The Gold and Sunshine Coasts will see some small local east swell in the mix throughout the week as a small ridge slowly flexes its strength inside our near swell window. But with mainly onshore winds and a lack of energy, there won’t be anything to write home about.

This weekend (Nov 23 onwards)

Elsewhere, a small ridge briefly developing south of New Caledonia on Thursday looks set to deliver a small peaky east swell for the Gold and Sunshine Coast this weekend (arriving later Saturday, peaking Sunday morning) but sets won’t top much more than about 2ft. And northerly winds will spoil the party anyway.

Otherwise, the only other source of new swell is a broad but ultimately weak trade wind belt developing south of Fiji from the weekend onwards. It’s a fair distance from the mainland and without any real fetch strength won’t generate much size, but it should be a source of small east swell through the first half of next week. Unfortunately, northerly winds are expected to continue through this time frame too, which will maintain poor conditions.