South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 19th November)

Best Days: Saturday: confined to NE facing beaches on the Lower Mid North Coast, thanks to a temporary abatement of local winds. Poor surf continuing elsewhere.

*Forecaster notes will be very brief this week as Craig’s away. Sorry for any inconvenience*

Look, there’s simply nothing to get excited about in the forecast period at all. Check the model guidance below for Coffs Harbour: N/NE winds somewhere either side of 20kts every day except Saturday, when it’ll be a little lighter and also may be N/NW early morning.

The only saving grace is Saturday morning - and only in the Lower Mid North Coast - where a weak, shallow and ultimately dissipating trough is likely to arrest the northerly flow in that next of the woods through the morning. We might even see winds swing to the west, or possibly even south (if model data is to be believed) around the Seal Rocks/Forster region. 

Couple that in with a peaky NE swell in the 3ft range and there’s a chance for a window of some fun waves, before the nor’easters return later in the day and re-strengthen Sunday onwards.

Elsewhere, there’s simply no letup from the north expected within the forecast period. And with no decent swells on the cards either, excluding local NE windswell sources (sure, a couple of small pulses from the east, but unlikely to be much more than a couple of feet) you’ll really have your work cut out keeping the motivation up. The only thing I can suggest is to aim for early morning sessions, at super protected northern corners if you have 'em handy. And keep your expectations very low.

There is a suggestion that we’ll see a moderate ridge build across the Northern NSW coast mid next week (and possibly the southern Qld region if we’re very lucky) but it’s a long way away right now. More on this in Friday’s notes.