South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 18th November)

Best Days: No great days until next week due to small swells and tricky winds. Keep an eye on Sunday afternoon though for the Gold Coast - there is some potential for a window of opportunity. Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs: decent long period S'ly swell across Northern NSW.

Recap: A building SE swell on Tuesday favoured Northern NSW with generally good conditions, especially south of Ballina. This swell has eased today but the early morning provided plenty of decent peaky waves in Northern NSW again, with early light NW winds. Unfortunately, surf size has been a little small north of the border and local winds have also created problems.

This week (Thursday 19th - Friday 20th)

Southeast QLD: Nothing much for the rest of the week. We have no new major swell sources on hand, and winds will remain out of the northern quadrant. I’d give the coast a miss for the next few days.

Northern NSW: A small, inconsistent southerly groundswell expected for the next few days has yet to show any appreciable size in Southern NSW today so it’s unlikely Thursday morning will bear any fruit in the surf department. In any case, we’re expecting northerly winds to freshen throughout the day and become gusty during the late afternoon and into Friday. 

The models are going for around 0.5m of south swell at 14 seconds on Thursday, easing and levelling out into Friday so this should eventually translate to a couple of feet at south swell magnets but for now I’d keep your expectations very low, especially on Thursday morning.

Friday afternoon may see the added bonus (!) of some short range NE windswell - particularly across the Mid North Coast - but on the balance it’s not worth getting excited about.

This weekend (Saturday 21st - Sunday 22nd)

The models have moved around quite a bit over the last few days, and the weekend outlook has changed considerably. 

The southerly change tracking up the Northern NSW coast on Saturday is now expected to be weaker, so the swell potential trailing it is somewhat diminished.

Tiny surf and northerly winds ahead of the change will occupy Southeast Qld on Saturday, whilst Northern NSW will see similarly small swells and developing southerly winds that probably won’t kick up an appreciable level of size until the evening (mainly in the Mid North too). This pattern is quite reminiscent of last weekend.

On Sunday, the models have the trough holding steady across SE Qld which has some mild swell potential for the southern Gold Coast and Far Northern NSW points, and that’s about it. With very little fetch trailing the change on Saturday, I can’t see there being much more than 2-3ft surf at south facing beaches in Northern NSW on Sunday. 

That being said, I have a feeling the models will ramp up the strength of the SE infeed into the trough line over the coming days, which may very well boost the surf outlook from what’s currently looking quite small and lacklustre. However, this may still not be enough to kick start the Sunny Coast into gear. 

So right now, it looks pretty desperate on paper but I’m quietly confident that by Friday we’ll have a more optimistic outlook for SE Qld on Sunday - specifically the Gold Coast - where we should see an afternoon of fun small outer points (let’s aim for 2ft+) under a breezey sou’easter. Fingers crossed, eh? 

Otherwise, if you live south of Ballina or on the Sunny Coast, don’t plan anything major around the surf this weekend.

Next week (Monday 23rd onwards)

A succession of very strong Southern Ocean fronts south of the Tasman Sea from this weekend onwards will generate an extended period of strong long period south swell for the first half of next week.

At this stage the leading edge is due into the Mid North Coast mid-late morning Monday, and the Far North Coast late afternoon, with Tuesday, Wednesday and possibly even Thursday likely to see continuing strong energy across Northern NSW.

At this stage, wave heights should reach somewhere in the 3-5ft range at exposed south swell magnets, but I’ll have more on this in Friday’s notes.

Unfortunately, most SE Qld beaches away from the south swell magnets will remain very small due to the unfavourable swell direction. But, those handful of exposed beaches should pick up some small worthwhile energy.