South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 25th November)

Best Days: Fri: chance for some fun peaky NE windswell at beaches with protection from S'ly winds (mainly in Northern NSW; expect smaller surf in SE Qld). Sat/Sun: small peaky beachies with early light winds. Mon onwards: slowly building E'ly swell right through until next weekend, but with tricky winds. 

Recap: There’s been nothing of any interest in SE Qld for the last few days, but Northern NSW picked up a strong long period south swell on Tuesday with 4ft+ sets at south facing beaches, with workable conditions at the semi-exposed points under a southerly flow. This swell eased overnight but a reasonable period of slack winds from dawn provided glassy conditions at exposed south swell magnets with sets of around 3ft, albeit very inconsistent. Fresh northerlies are now up across the region limiting rideable options to the most protected northern corners. 

Next week (Thursday 26 - Friday 27th)

Southeast Qld: Thursday will once again be a write off across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, with no notable swell and fresh northerly winds. A small increase in short range windswell will occur throughout the day but it’s not worth working around.

An approaching trough from the south in the early hours of Friday morning is expected to reach the border around dawn (give or take an hour), before pushing northwards and arriving across the Sunshine Coast mid-late morning. Gusty overnight northerlies should slightly build NE windswells across north-facing beaches for the dawn patrol, but this will ease steadily throughout the day as the responsible fetch is arrested. 

We’ll probably see sets of around 2ft from this source, but don’t expect anything amazing in the surf department. However the southern points will clean up quickly once the wind swings, so this should offer a few peaky waves to start the day. The models are suggesting an increase in short range S’ly swell behind the change but I don’t think there’ll be much in it, as the trailing fetch is not particularly strong and weakens slowly throughout Friday.

Most Gold Coast beaches should maintain average 1-2ft surf into the afternoon, reaching 2-3ft at south swell magnets late in the day (though they’ll be blown out with the southerly breeze). 

The Sunshine Coast is harder to have confidence in for Friday's surf potential. Firstly, the delayed arrival of the southerly means we’ll be at the mercy of a lingering northerly flow in the morning (probably tending NW). Additionally, with the NE windswell not being especially large, nor the later building S’ly windswell, there may not be enough size on offer to allow for anything worthwhile at the outer points once the wind swings.

The best we can hope for on the Sunny Coast is a small window of light winds ahead of the change - say between 8am and noon - where we may see a few small peaky beach breaks and generally favourable conditions. But I wouldn’t rearrange the diary around this. 

Northern NSW: The developing northerly flow on Thursday is expected to become quite strong, and should subsequently generate a decent short range NE windswell in the 3-4ft+ range, especially in the southern regions (wave heights will be smaller as you head north). But finding locations out of the wind picking up this swell will be difficult. 

South facing beaches should also see a small residual southerly groundswell in the water on Thursday, but with such tricky winds it may be a little tricky to manage. 

On Friday we’ve got a couple of swells expected in the water - continuing small southerly groundswell, a building short range southerly windswell in the wake of a gusty change (due into Port Mac around 9pm Thurs night, reaching Byron just before dawn), plus leftover, rapidly easing NE windswell from Thursday’s blow. 

Initially, north facing beaches may see some leftover sets in the 3ft range from the NE but it’ll rapidly drop throughout the day. The southerly groundswell and windswell probably won’t amount to much more than 3ft or so at south facing beaches (with a delayed arrival in the Far North), but only protected southern corners will have workable options due to a moderate/fresh S’ly tending SE winds. It’ll abate during the day though so surface conditions should slowly improve. 

The pick of these two days is probably a north facing beach on Friday morning, offering shelter from southerly winds. Hopefully there’ll still be enough leftover NE windswell to make it worthwhile. But as per the SE Qld outlook, I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

This weekend (Saturday 28th - Sunday 29th)

Nothing amazing is expected this weekend, but there’ll be some fun small waves about most coasts.

The swells expected on Friday will mostly have disappeared by Saturday, just some trailing southerly windswell and groundswell at south swell magnets in Northern NSW. 

However, a broadening depression just north of Fiji is expected to enhance an impressive trade flow to the south over the coming days, generating an easterly swell that’s expected to be quite a long lasting even through next week. The first signs of east swell are due throughout Saturday, and whilst only small in size, should provide a broad coverage of swell across most coasts.

Much of Saturday will see light winds and sea breezes (E/SE), with inconsistent sets in the 2ft range at exposed beaches. This should nudge up a little throughout Sunday, with set waves between 2ft and maybe 3ft on the more favourable parts of the tide. 

We’re also expecting light morning winds on Sunday but the afternoon sea breezes will swing to the northeast, so despite the upwards size trend throughout the day it’ll be worth aiming for an early paddle to capitalise on the cleaner conditions.

More on this in Friday’s update.

Next week (Monday 30th onwards)  

This tropical feature near Fiji looks like it’s going to anchor itself in place for quite some time, which, combined with a large high pressure system to the east of New Zealand, should produce a sustained period of easterly swell for the region.

The only downer is that this swell generating system will be located a considerable distance from the mainland, which will impact on consistency. However there are signs towards the ends of the current model runs that an embedded tropical low may may retrograde westward inside the swell window, leading to an enhanced, more consistent groundswell event - perhaps sometime around next weekend. 

For now, we’re looking at almost a week of east swell from Monday through into next weekend, with size slowly building from 2-3ft on Monday morning up towards 3-4ft+ through the middle of the week (later Tues/Wed), and possibly as high as 4-5ft+ by the end of next week and the following weekend.

Therefore, with a whole week of waves on the cards you’ll be able to be quite choosy when you surf, in and around the local winds. And this is a good thing, as we’re expecting some form of northerly breeze from Monday thru’ Wednesday, ahead of a southerly change some time around the end of the week.

At this stage it’s hard to have confidence on the strength of the northerly winds - early indications are that Monday will be light and quite workable, but Tuesday and (more likely) Wednesday could be problematic - but let’s take a closer look on Friday.