South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 14th October)

Best Days: Tues: building south swell across Northern NSW. Wed/Thurs/Fri: solid fluctuating south swell across Northern NSW, possibly some small waves in SE Qld late Thurs/Fri. Sat/Sun: small trade swell for SE Qld. Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs: building E/NE swell, biggest in SE Qld. 

Recap: Very small surf persisted over the weekend with mainly N’ly winds across most coasts. Similar conditions have held out into today. 

This week (Nov 15th - 18th)

There’s a fair push of south swell on the way and we’re looking at a few days of very good waves across Northern NSW. SE Qld surfers won’t see much from this source unfortunately, but there are good long term prospects starting to firm up.. read more below.

Back to this week, and we’ve got two separate south swells on the way for this week. 

Right now a Tasman low is driving a cold front across the Southern NSW coast, and strong to gale force S’ly winds in its wake will whip up large southerly swells that will build through Tuesday, before easing back on Wednesday. 

South facing beaches south of Byron should see a peak somewhere in the 4-6ft range throughout the day - mid-late morning south of Coffs, and mid-late afternoon north of Coffs - though the acute swell direction will create smaller waves at beaches with less southern exposure. The later building trend across the Far North also means it’ll start from a smaller base so keep your size expectations in check here if you’re planning on an early surf. 

Winds are looking to be moderate to fresh S/SW for the most part, with a chance for early SW winds in some regions, so open beaches will become blown out and the best waves will be found at semi-exposed points. 

North of Byron, we’ll see smaller surf across the Tweed Coast (with a very late peak in size, so don’t be surprised if the morning is quite small) and it’ll be very small throughout SE Qld, only favouring south swell magnets with some stray 2ft+ sets on dark and tiny waves persisting across the remaining beaches and points.

This southerly swell will level out into Wednesday across the Far North/SE Qld coasts, but ease across the Mid North Coast. 

In fact, there are two feeder sources of swell that will supply good background swell through Wednesday and early Thursday across Northern NSW. The first is a developing E/SE through SE then S’ly fetch at the bottom flank of the low - immediately west of the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island today. 

Secondly, despite the Tasman low moving eastwards, a ridge will remain across the SE Tasman Sea on Tuesday with strong SW winds exiting eastern Bass Strait, which will continue to generate smaller sideband energy through the middle of the week in the 3ft+ range for south facing beaches. 

Additionally, conditions are looking good on Wednesday with light winds and sea breezes. 

A second cold front currently developing SW of Tasmania today is then expected to enter the Lower Tasman Sea later Tuesday, eventually merging with the remnants of the current Tasman Low by early Wednesday. This progression will result in gale force S’ly winds through the lower Tasman Sea that will kick up a renewal of solid south swell for Thursday morning across the Mid North Coast, and Thursday afternoon across the Far North Coast. 

Whilst less favourably aligned for the East Coast (partly due to the fetch orientation, and partly due to the more eastern position of the fetch), the groundswell generated should be very good quality - even if it only glances the coast. 

As such I think we’ll probably see a similar size range as per late Tuesday, if not a smidge higher across the northern parts of the NSW coast, with sets around the 4-6ft mark at most south facing beaches. Otherwise, once again expect smaller surf at beaches not completely open to the south. 

SE Qld should see a little more size from this swell too, but only just - up to 3ft+ at reliable south swell magnets north of the border late in the day, and 1-2ft+ across most open beaches and outer points (again, much smaller in the morning). However set waves will be very inconsistent.

The only concern we have on Thursday is a freshening SE breeze across Northern NSW and SE Qld as a ridge develops through the Coral Sea. We may see an early period of SE winds in some regions but for the most part the SE flow will extend down to about Yamba (light variable winds and sea breezes are expected across the Mid North Coast). 

As for Friday, we’ll see slowly easing S/SE swell from Thursday afternoon across Northern NSW, with a supplementary SE swell across SE Qld beaches (~2ft or so). Because the swell will be drying up from the south, we’ll see smaller surf across the Mid North Coast (3-4ft) than the Far North Coast (4-5ft), but conditions should be generally favourable south of Byron with light winds and sea breezes. Far Northern NSW and SE Qld may see a lingering E/SE flow but pockets of SW wind are possible early.

This weekend (Nov 19th - 20th)

There’s no amazing surf expected across any coast this weekend, however given the extended period of poor surf experienced in SE Qld, comparatively speaking we should see some super fun beachies across the Gold, Sunshine and Tweed Coasts. 

First up - the southerly swells from later this week will ease rapidly by Saturday so expect only small residual energy from these sources. 

Otherwise, an anchoring ridge through the Coral Sea should generate some peaky E’ly trade swell for the Far Northern NSW and SE Qld coasts, biggest on the Sunshine Coast and smaller with increasing southerly latitude. Surf size will build slowly through Saturday, and Sunday should offer 2-3ft waves across most beaches, with a few bigger sets across the Sunshine Coast. 

Winds look to be mainly onshore this weekend though not very strong,and we should see periods of light variable winds in the early mornings.

South of Byron, this east swell won’t show up very much and winds will freshen from the north, creating below average conditions. However, Sunday is also on target to see a very small but long period southerly groundswell across Northern NSW, originating from a deep mid-latitude low tracking well below Tasmania later this week.

It’s not very well aligned for our coast but the sheer size and strength of the low (50kt+ surface winds) should override some of the directional deficiencies. As such south facing beaches could be looking at very inconsistent 3ft+ sets at times, more likely through the afternoon than the morning. I’ll update this in more detail on Wednesday. 

Next week (Nov 21st onwards)

In Friday’s notes I mentioned a modelled tropical system at the back end of the run, which I didn’t think stood much of a chance of developing into anything noteworthy. 

Well, it looks like I was wrong. This system still showing in the long term forecast (though the models have been shunting it slowly backwards in time), and we are potentially looking towards a sustained period of small to medium sized E/NE swell from this region thanks to a regional blocking pattern keeping this system anchored in the Coral Sea.

It’s too early to look at specifics - and there is also a risk that this period will be accompanied by a lengthy period of E/NE thru NE and N/NE wind - but we’re on track we can expect a slowly building E/NE swell from Monday through Wednesday and maybe even Thursday, that could reach 4-5ft at exposed beaches (biggest across SE Qld, smaller as you track south of Byron).

Keeping in mind that this is still more than a week away, we’ll watch closely over the updated model runs over the coming days.