South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 4th  October)

Best Days: Sun: building S'ly swell in Northern NSW (expect a delay in the Far North) with generally good winds. Tiny in SE Qld. Mon/Tues: plenty of S'ly swell in Northern NSW but N'ly winds will spoil conditions; possible windows early morning with NW breezes. Only small across SE Qld. 

Recap: Small distant groundswells provided fun little beach breaks across all coasts on Thursday, being a combination of long range E’ly swell and a long range S’ly swell - the former managed 2ft sets across SE Qld and Northern NSW, with Northern NSW also picking up a few bigger sets out of the south. However, watching the surfcams throughout the day showed lengthy periods of tiny conditions (due to the infrequent nature of these distant swells). Today these swell sources have both eased back, and northerly winds are freshening across the region. 

This weekend (Nov 5th - 6th)

Saturday still looks pretty ordinary though Northern NSW should see some small residual southerly swell at exposed northern ends (inconsistent 2ft or so), and with winds slightly west of north (i.e. NNW) conditions should be just-workable at these locations.

Everywhere isn’t looking very flash at all with very little surf unlikely to produce anything worthwhile under the northerly breeze. 

Keep an eye out for the very late shallow southerly change across the Mid North Coast. 

This change will be associated with a strong cold front that’s expected to enter the lower Tasman Sea on Saturday morning, and it will generate a strong south swell for Northern NSW on Sunday. 

However, the timing of this new swell isn’t fantsastic for all locations (mainly in the north) due to a moderate threat of an afternoon NE sea breeze: we should see the leading edge into the Mid North Coast early morning ahead of a strong upwards trend through the middle of the day, and the Far North Coast is likely to start off very small ahead of a mid-late morning building trend towards an afternoon peak. 

Exposed south facing beaches south of Byron are looking at solid 4-5ft+ sets at the height of the swell but the acute southerly swell direction will considerably limit size at most other beaches. Winds will be light offshore across most locations early morning, however the Far North Coast may see the remnants of the overnight SE change at first - it’s expected to largely dissipate across the region with winds becoming variable throughout the morning, but keep it in mind.

Across SE Qld we won’t see much of this south swell make landfall, except for reliable south swell magnets (the handful of ‘em that pick up acute south swells well). As per the Far North Coast, there is a risk of an early S/SE breeze but in general we’re looking at light variable winds and afternoon sea breezes. Expect tiny surf at most beaches with a possible late increase at the aforementioned south swell magnets. 

Next week (Nov 7th onwards)

First up: our eastern swell window will remain inactive next week so there’s no easterly swell on the way, which means we’re looking down the barrel of an extended period of small surf throughout SE Qld. 

But, the outlook for Northern NSW is very active early next week. 

The parent low to Saturday’s front will stall S/SE of Tasmania on Saturday, slingshotting a series of fronts through Bass Strait into Sunday (all contributing south swell to our region) whilst also generating a secondary south swell off a S/SW fetch across its western flank.

This is expected to supply plenty of south swell across Northern NSW on Monday and early Tuesday, probably of a similar size to Sunday (4-5ft south facing beaches south of Byron, smaller elsewhere), however a little more consistency is expected as there’ll be two or three swell trains running concurrently. This may also create the odd bigger set at reliable swell magnets, particularly on Monday.

The main problem we have next week is a slow moving high pressure system in the northern Tasman Sea, which is expected to freshen northerly winds about al regions from Monday thru’ Wednesday. This will likely take the sheen of what’s otherwise expected to be a very good southerly swell. The only options you’ll have will be protected northern corners though they may be a little too chunky at times.

These northerly winds will whip up some small local N’ly windswell for north facing beaches, no great size is excepted but 2-3ft sets are possible across the Mid North Coast through Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, with smaller surf further north. 

The only option we have next week is to try and identify small windows of favourable winds, where we can sneak in a quick session here or there - at this stage each morning (Mon thru' Wed) has a reasonable chance for a  period of NW winds though it’s hard to have any confidence whether this will coincide with the right tides and swell phases for your local.

Across SE Qld, most locations will remain tiny though this south swell should pulse somewhere in the 2-3ft range at exposed northern ends through Monday and Tuesday so it might be worth sniffing around. 

Looking further ahead and there’s nothing of any significant standing out in the long term forecast period at this stage. 

Have a great weekend, and I’ll see you Monday!