South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 28th November)

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Best Days: No great days due to small swells and unfavourable winds. Probably early Tues at south swell magnets in Northern NSW as the last of the south swell pushes through (but before the N'ly gets too strong), or Fri with a chance for a period of light winds and a small new S'ly swell across the Mid North Coast.

Recap: The weekend largely played out as expected, with small surf throughout SE Qld, but Northern NSW picking up varying degrees of long period S’ly groundswell. Wave heights were strong out of the south all weekend but later Sunday and early Monday probably saw the biggest sets with south swell magnets picking up 4-5ft bombs. Unfortunately, persistent northerly winds have created problems most days though there have been small windows of opportunity, mainly in the mornings. 

Red tide at Sunshine today?

Oh, and Coffs was smoking this AM.

This week (Nov 29th - Dec 2nd)

It’s a tricky week ahead for surf forecasting purposes, but there is one underlying theme that will unite us for the next five days.

Northerly winds.

Well, that’s not entirely true for the whole region - a trough will move up the NSW coast on Friday, creating periods of light winds but the northerlies will return on Saturday.

So now we’ve got the wind regime established, let’s take a look at the swell prospects. 

Right now we’re on the backside of the last of the major southerly groundswell events. There’s still plenty of size across Southern NSW this afternoon though the trend is downwards; consequently south swell magnets across Northern NSW (south of Byron) should still see some 3ft sets early morning but with freshening northerlies you’ll have to sniff out a protected northern corner. Smaller surf is expected into the afternoon.

A small, low confidence S/SE swell may also push up the coast into Tuesday, generated by the parent low to the frontal progression that generated the weekend’s southerly swell. It was positioned south of New Zealand, so we’re only looking at the outer edges of this swell glancing the coast, but it’s plausible for inconsistent 2-3ft sets to appear at south facing beaches at times. This may hold into early Wednesday if we’re lucky.

Another small S’ly groundswell is then expected to nose into the lower Mid North Coast late Wednesday, originating from a small cut-off low south of Tasmania today. The fetch length is only small and it’s not especially well lined up within our swell window, but south facing beaches may pick up a few 2ft+ sets (more likely into Thursday morning, especially in the Far North). 

Both of these south swells are not being resolved by the swell models at all, so keep your expectations low. And with the northerly flow expected to be fresh for much of each day you will have to hunt out appropriate back beaches for the only rideable options.

Lastly, to finish the week we have yet another small unusual swell source that’s not really showing up on the models right now. The front mentioned above (for Wednesday’s S’ly swell) is expected to merge with a broad, stationary polar low well south of New Zealand on Tuesday. This parent system is expected to display S/SW gales through the periphery of our S/SE swell window, which should send up some small inconsistent waves for Friday across the Mid North Coast  - maybe not until the afternoon, with Saturday a safer bet for the Far North Coast (even then it’s a longshot).

Of course, all week these northerly winds will generate small weak windswells, but the only fetch of any interest looks like it’ll develop late Thursday, meaning early Friday may see some small fun NE windswell across Northern NSW. I can't see much more than a couple of feet of weak peaky surf though.

As for SE Qld this week (whoops! Almost forgot this neck of the woods with the poor wind outlook) - there’s not much to look forward to.

A broad SE fetch through the Coral Sea associated with a tropical low south of the Solomons may generate some small mid-range E/NE swell over the next day or two, but probably just for the Sunshine Coast at best with occasional peaky and tidally influenced 2ft sets. Expect smaller surf south of the Gold Coast from this source. 

Winds won’t be great anyway so it’s not worth too much effort.

Otherwise, the rest of the week will see tiny, wind affected gutless swells. Hooray for November! Hope you got barrelled last week...

This weekend (Dec 3rd - Dec 4th)

The weekend forecast looks dismal on the charts at the moment, with no major swells and variable tending onshore winds under a persistent troughy pattern. Winds will most likely be northerly both days across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW but we may see southerlies creep into the Mid North Coast at times. 

However, there’s yet ANOTHER swell generating system on the charts that’s not being resolved by the wave models very well and it could also produce some small rideable waves in Northern NSW (on a weekend when an ordinary glance would suggest no surfable activity). 

In the notes above for the small S/SE swell I mentioned for Friday, this stationary polar low is expected to also merge with a frontal infeed from the east. This kind of development isn’t such a rare occurrence, but the actual storm track and timeline is - we’re looking at the possibility of slow moving E’ly gales in an unusual part of our distant SE swell window, which could very well produce some occasional 2ft sets at exposed beaches four or five days later. 

Right now the arrival of this is hard to pin down but it seems there’s a great chance of it being a Sunday (rather than Saturday) swell event. 

I’ll have more info on this in Wednesday’s update.

Next week (Dec 5th onwards)

Nothing major on the long range charts. 

The tropical low south of the Solomons is not showing any sign that it’ll influence swell production in any part of our swell window… yet. It’s expected to track on the windward side of New Caledonia mid-week then briefly freshen an easterly flow south of Fiji later this week and into the weekend, though no major surf is expected from this source right now.

Elsewhere, the Southern Ocean storm track looks zonal and the Tasman Sea looks weak and troughy.

So, we could be looking at an extended period of small flukey swells for some time.

See you Wednesday!