South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 20th November)

Best Days: Most days will have fun waves. Tuesday for the most size, though SE winds will confine the best waves to sheltered points. Look for a nice kick in E'ly swell this weekend too, ahead of an extended run of small to moderate trade swell into the long term. It's a great looking February weather pattern in November, so take advantage of it!

Recap: The weekend was pretty crappy on the balance, with mainly onshore winds. But, wave heights slowly built in size from 1-2ft Saturday morning to 3ft by Sunday afternoon. Today a much better, longer period E’ly groundswell has arrived, through the sets are inconsistent. We’re seeing 4-5ft sets at open beaches in Far Northern NSW and SE Qld, with smaller surf running down the points around the 3ft mark. Surf size is fractionally smaller across the Mid North Coast. Winds are fresh SE in general so only protected spots are clean, though there are pockets of lighter S’ly winds, even SW early morning across the Mid North Coast. 

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Nice waves at Snapper early afternoon - the pick of the entire East Coast by the looks of it

Good indication of the size pushing through Greenmount, about 2-3ft+

How d'ya like yr crowds?

Byron lining up, though not especially big

This is the best I saw at Noosa - very small and crowded

This week (Nov 21st - 24th)

So, we look like we’re close to the top of the initial swell cycle from our lovely little weather system that developed north of New Zealand last week.

As a side note, for an east swell this is about as far out as you’ll get for a long range forecast - it was first mentioned in these notes on November 3rd, 17 days ago. 

There’s still more energy to come, though it’ll be slightly lower period and a little smaller in size too, so wave heights will gradually ease throughout Tuesday. Sets will likely become less consistent too - this swell was generated a long way form the mainland. 

Surf size may build fractionally overnight but the easing trend on Tuesday will probably start off in the 3-5ft range across open beaches in Far Northern NSW and SE Qld, easing to 3ft+ into the afternoon. Expect slightly smaller surf running down the points, and also across the Mid North Coast.

If there were a coastline that might punch slightly above this figure, it’ll be the Ballina/Tweed coasts, because of its northern latitude (relative to the source fetch) and slightly better alignment. I wouldn’t expect much more than another foot or so at best though. 

The main problem on Tuesday will be persistent fresh SE winds. Again, we may see pockets of lighter S’ly winds but this combo will favour the same small number of sheltered points that are producing the best waves today. 

Easing size from the east will then pad out the rest of the week, and the coastal ridge will throttle back, allowing the onshore flow to also ease across Far Northern NSW and SE Qld.  We won’t see a true offshore but there’ll be slightly longer pockets of broader offshore winds in the early mornings. This should produce fun waves at most beaches. 

The only exception here is the Mid North Coast, which will be closer to a weak Tasman high and should see light variable winds from Wednesday through Friday, albeit with a chance for afternoon NE breezes at times. 

Although our E’ly swell will ease steadily through Wednesday, we won’t see flat conditions to finish the week. There are couple of regions of activity that are worth keeping an eye on - one is a small S’ly fetch adjacent New Zealand’s South Island, which feeds into a second source - a moderate ridge through the northern Tasman Sea. This will maintain peaky waves at open beaches each day. 

In fact, we’re on track for a Saturday pulse in E’ly swell, from the building ridge through the northern Tasman Sea, and this may arrive on Friday afternoon. I’ll firm up the timing in Wednesday’s update. 

This weekend (Nov 25th - 26th)

We’ve got some mid-range E’ly swell inbound for the weekend.

A building ridge through the north-eastern Tasman Sea from Wednesday night onwards is expected to retrograde westwards into Thursday, and although not terribly strong, will produce some fun surf for Saturday around the 2-3ft+ range across most coasts. Wave heights should persist through Sunday of a similar size as the fetch stretches back out into the South Pacific.

It’s worth nothing that an E’ly dip at the head of the fetch has been going through a significant upgrade/downgrade cycle over the last few days in what’s quite a dynamic atmospheric environment, so we’ll need to keep a watch on this as well.

A small trough along the Queensland coast will create tricky winds over the weekend; likely SE on Saturday north of the border but more E’ly south to the Mid North Coast. As the ridge draws closer to the mainland on Sunday we may see a more general E’ly flow across the coast though it doesn’t look like there’ll be much strength in it - enough to cause a few bumps but not a dramatic deterioration.

Next week (Nov 27th onwards)

Our southern swell window has been a little inactive of late, and the long term guidance suggests more of the same.

However, I’ll be keeping an eye on a small trough developing SE of Tasmania around Friday. It doesn’t look like much right now (likely to favour Tasmania more so than anywhere else) but could be the source of a small S/SE swell across Northern NSW on Monday. 

Otherwise, we’re looking at a semi-stationary ridge through the Northern Tasman Sea that’ll supply a lengthy period of fun trade swell for all coasts next week and into the following weekend, hovering either size of 3ft at the open beaches. This ridge may also become the catalyst for further troughy systems that could spin up into more significant swell producers. More on this in Wednesday’s update.