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

Best Days: No great days due to tricky wind outlook (Mid North Coast has the best chance early Friday but a S'ly change will spoil the party). Long term looks good though.

Recap: Small leftovers E’ly swell early Tues, with early W’ly winds that swung to the northern quadrant mid morning. A new E’ly swell arrived late but size was biggest in the south (via slightly higher wave heights at the Crowdy Head buoy compared to Byron Bay). NW-NE winds have remained in place today ahead of a gusty S’ly change that’s tracking along the Northern NSW coast (into Coffs at 1:48pm, Evans Head at 6pm). We should see an arrival at the border of the coming hours. Yesterday’s late E’ly swell has eased steadily through the day and really only benefited exposed beaches in Northern NSW.

This week (Dec 18-19th)

Thursday looks pretty ordinary for the most part.

The southerly change currently advancing along the coast will weaken overnight, leaving us with light variable winds in most areas early morning ahead of a freshening NE breeze in the afternoon in the south, that’ll probably be more northerly in direction north of Ballina. 

Surf wise we’re only expecting a mix of small southerly swell trailing today’s change, and some small residual easterly swell.

Very late in the day we’ll see the arrival of yet another pulse of E’ly groundswell, generated by an intensification of the stationary E’ly fetch (late Tuesday) that’s been positioned off the West Coast of New Zealand’s North Island since the weekend.

The latest ASCAT satellite returns were impressive from this system, showing core wind speeds of 40kts - but unfortunately they are aimed towards the southern NSW coast (see image below). 

And in a double blow for Northern NSW/SE Qld surfers, this fetch also slipped southwards (not good for us) in addition to a counter-clockwise rotation of the fetch alignment (also not good for us), which furthers reduces the surf potential from what would have otherwise been an excellent swell producer, had it been aimed more towards the W/NW.

As such, we’re not looking at much swell energy north of (about) Coffs Harbour from this source, and what energy does arrive will probably peak overnight Thursday.

Furthermore, without the availability of offshore buoy data (and by ‘offshore’ I mean a couple of hundred kilometres east of the mainland, which would give five to eight hours notice of incoming east swells), it’s very hard to have confidence in the precise timing of the leading edge. Model guidance has it in late afternoon/early evening (around 6pm) but we need a few hours of elasticity on this (of which, wave heights rarely jump to their full potential within a few hours of the leading edge anyway).

As such Friday is your best chance to capitalise on this swell but you’ll have to work around the local winds. A more pronounced southerly change will work its way up the coast during the day - into the Mid North Coast early morning, and the North Coast through the afternoon, reaching SE Qld late in the day. Ahead of it, winds are likely to be W’ly so the beach breaks should have good options - so the key will be to find that window of opportunity before the change arrives. 

And size? I’m really not that confident on this event, but I think it’s reasonable to expect inconsistent 3ft+ sets at open beaches south of Coffs Harbour (where the southerly change will spoil conditions away from protected southern corners), 2ft+ from Coffs to about Byron and then 1-2ft north from Byron to the Sunny Coast.

And this size range is for the early session: smaller waves are expected through the day as we work off the backside of this pulse. 

Just to finish it off, an increase in bumpy short range south swell is likely through the afternoon at south facing beaches in Northern NSW (mainly in the south).

Keep your expectations low.

This weekend (Dec 20th - 21st)

Nothing of major interest this weekend. The models are holding a moderate ridge across the southern Qld coastline in the wake of Friday’s change, which suggests a small short range SE swell for the Gold, Sunshine and Far Northern NSW coasts both Saturday and Sunday. Although it probably won’t be enough for anything worthwhile at the semi-exposed points - so anticipate small bumpy waves at open beaches. 

We’ll also see some small leftover southerly swell (generated form the change itself) at south facing beaches in Northern NSW early Saturday, but it’ll fade through the day and will be almost gone by Sunday.

Otherwise, a small residual east swell should pad out most open beaches with a couple of feet of inconsistent, low quality surf.

As for the local winds, the ridge across southern Qld will influence the local airstream from the Sunny Coast down to about Ballina (moderate to fresh SE, possibly lighter SW early morning). The remaining Northern NSW coasts will see lighter winds with a similar directional trend (early SW, later SE). So on the whole not particularly flash, but certainly surfable if you’re keen for a weekend paddle.

Long term (Dec 22nd onwards)

Couple of things popping up on the long term model runs, which is encouraging.

Firstly, as mentioned on Monday we’ve got a broad trade belt developing north and north-east of New Zealand from this weekend onwards, signalling a return to small to moderate, long-lasting distant E’ly swell for the foreseeable future (beginning early-mid next week, that is).

A developing polar low well south of Tasmania late Friday/Saturday looks good on the synoptic charts, but as it’s a cut off system its swell generating potential needs to be curbed (for now). Current thinking is that we’ll get a fun shot of mid-range S’ly swell later Monday and into Tuesday, with very inconsistent 2ft sets showing up at exposed south swell magnets in Northern NSW (but unlikely to influence anywhere else). 

Otherwise, we’ve got a complex troughy pattern setting up across a couple of regions of the Tasman Sea. Model guidance is pointing towards a modest SE fetch off the West Coast of New Zealand’s North Island that could supply some small SE swell through next week too. 

Additionally, a developing trough over the SE corner of the country early in the week may push off the coast, evolving into a small Tasman Low during Tuesday - which could give rise to a punchy SE swell for southern NSW through the middle of the week. At the moment there’s no suggestion that it’d influence our region but it’s worth keeping an eye on as it’s certainly a good indication of a nearby source of regional instability that could flourish throughout successive model runs, and could end up being be a source of new swell for Northern NSW (and maybe SE Qld) mid-late next week. 

This is all still along time away, but it’s fun to speculate on what might be as we work towards the Xmas period - especially as most of you will be on holidays, scouting for some great mid-week waves. I’ll update the specifics on Friday.