South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 30th November)

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Best Days: Fri/Sat/Sun: plenty of N/NE windswell, but with tricky winds. May see a period of light variable winds across the Mid North Coast Sat/Sun mornings, but with smaller surf size. Otherwise N'ly winds will likely create problems just about everywhere.

Recap: Persistent S’ly swell offered early 3ft sets across south facing beaches in Northern NSW on Tuesday, with smaller surf throughout today. Wave heights have been very small across SE Qld though exposed beaches have pulled in a few small waves. Winds have been mainly northerly though the early mornings have offered window of lighter W/NW winds. 

This week (Dec 1st - Dec 2nd)

There’s really nothing to get excited about over the coming days. We’ve got a couple of small swell sources ahead from the south and north-east but no major quality is expected and winds are expected to remain out of the northern quadrant across all coasts. We may see a brief period of lighter NW winds early Thursday morning but its not worth working around. 

In fact, the models have shifted around since Monday, with regards to Friday’s local wind outlook. The weak trough expected to envelop the Northern NSW region has been wiped off the charts; instead we’ll see N/NE gales through Thursday afternoon maintain strength into Friday. 

This should generate a healthy short range N/NE swell for all regions to finish the working week, though you’ll have to tuck into a protected northern corner for the best waves. Exposed beaches and southern ends (including SE Qld beaches) should pick up 2-3ft sets with bigger waves possible across exposed north facing locations in Northern NSW - owing to the longer fetch length. 

However these local N/NE swells are often quite erratic and can often miss many beaches so don’t get too enthused.

Wave heights are expected to speak through the afternoon. If you were to hedge your bets, there’s a chance that the Sunny Coast may not pick up quite as much size as the Gold Coast but overall there should be some rideable waves around if you don’t mind bumpy conditions. 

Also worth mentioning for Friday is a low chance for a small S/SE swell to glance the Northern NSW region, originating from a broad, stationary polar low well south of New Zealand on Tuesday. This system displayed S/SW gales through the periphery of our S/SE swell window, which should send up some small inconsistent waves, somewhere in the 1-2ft range at south facing beaches. However, I am not expecting to see many waves from this system as it really wasn’t very strong and wasn’t aligned within our swell window very well. 

This weekend (Dec 3rd - Dec 4th)

Saturday has some potential. But at this stage it looks like the best options will be south of about Ballina or maybe Yamba.

A weak trough is expected to cross the region, bringing about light variable winds through the morning. Strong N'ly winds on Friday will be abating off the Northern NSW coast, but they should still be producing a reasonable short range NNE swell that will be easing during the day. Exposed swell magnets may pick up some 2-3ft sets early morning, so fingers crossed we see a window of lighter winds. 

A similar size range is expected across the Gold Coast (slightly smaller across the Sunshine Coast, though possibly building a little during the day) - but there’s a greater chance that the N’ly breeze may hold steady here. If this happens there’ll be very few surfable options. 

If you want to extract a positive from this synoptic outlook, it’s that the stationary N’ly fetch adjacent to the SE Qld coast on Friday and Saturday will maintain northerly windswell through into Sunday - when it’ll probably start to erase across the Mid North Coast of NSW (thanks to the slow moving trough).

So, the outlook for Sunday is 2-3ft peaky N/NE swell throughout SE Qld with average to poor conditions under a N’ly breeze, but from about Byron or Ballina south we should again see light variable winds through the morning before the northerlies freshen into the afternoon. Smaller surf is likely here from this source. 

One other swell will also be in the water over the weekend - a small east swell, generated by moderate trades developing across the southern flank of the broader synoptic system associated with the Coral Sea Low. No major size is expected from these winds but most beaches should pick up occasional 2ft sets.

And lastly, as hinted at on Monday, we may see some very occasional setsout of the SE across Northern NSW on Sunday, originating from a small, rare fetch well to the SE of New Zealand over the last few days. 

This system looks impressive on the ASCAT returns but you have to factor in the exaggerated map projections at polar latitudes (as it almost doubles the apparent size of the fetch). And when you couple in the enormous travel distance, in reality we’re probably not looking at much more than a couple of stray 2ft sets at swell magnets. 

However in the absence of any other major swell this may very well keep the exposed beaches from becoming flat, as there won’t be very much residual swell around from other sources.

Next week (Dec 5th onwards)

Still not a lot on the long term charts. 

The Coral Sea Low will track SE past New Caledonia and then maintain this trajectory into the South Pacific. It looks good on the synoptic if you look at single time stamps, but in sequence it shows that this unfavourable track won’t be much of a swell producer for us. So, it’s almost a complete write off from a major swell event point of view.

Otherwise, the Southern Ocean storm track still looks zonal and the Tasman Sea looks weak and troughy, much as it did in Monday’s model runs. A strong front passing south of Tasmania around Monday should kick up some south swell for the middle of the week, but at this stage it doesn’t look particularly exciting.

And to cap it off, I can foresee another extended spell of northerly winds ahead through the first half of next week at least.

Let’s take a closer look on Friday, eh?