South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 27th November)

Best Days: Make the most of small beachies Tues/Wed, as Thurs thru' Sun will be largely written off by freshening NE tending gusty N'ly winds. Next week looks good though.

Recap: Hands up who scored some fun waves over the weekend? Warm, blue water, early light winds with arvo onshores not particularly strong, plenty of surf building to 3-4ft Saturday and Sunday, easing a little today but still delivering unreal summer-like waves across outer points and open beaches alike. 

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl. 

This week (Nov 28th - Dec 1st)

We’re still locked in this semi-stationary weather pattern. But, an advancing trough from the south-west later this week will freshen NE winds Thursday and Friday, ahead of a weekend of gusty northerlies.

So, you’ll have to make the most of the next two days for the best surface conditions. 

We’ve got a steady though not overly strong trade flow through the South Pacific and Northern Tasman Sea, and this will generate small E’ly swells for the entire forecast period. 

Wave heights should hover somewhere around 2ft, occasionally 2-3ft at most exposed beaches between the Sunshine Coast and Yamba (smaller running down the points), with marginally smaller surf south from Coffs. The surf will be inconsistent and tidally susceptible, so there’ll be periods of mediocrity in the mix, but Tuesday and Wednesday should offer good periods of light variable winds in the mornings. 

Thursday and Friday will see a minor additional NE windswell component slowly build on top of the trade swell, but with the freshening NE winds, surf quality will be an issue. I’m not even very confident that we’ll see brief windows of early light variable winds either, though it is possible north of Ballina (less likely south of Yamba). 

Friday is also expected to see a small boost in swell period from the east, thanks to an enhancement of the trades SE of Fiji at the moment. It won’t have much size but the slightly longer wavelength could add another half or one foot to (very infrequent) set waves at exposed beaches. Unfortunately, local conditions won’t allow many locations to take advantage of this. 

This weekend (Dec 2nd - 3rd)

Looks like a shabby weekend for surfers ahead as the N/NE airstream strengthens with an approaching trough. 

Prior to this, the ridge through the Northern Tasman Sea will have strengthened through Thursday and Friday and this will slightly boost trade swell size for the weekend, probably around 3ft+ at most open beaches. There’ll also be a small NE windswell component in the mix too. 

However, local winds could reach 25-30kts across the Mid North Coast (see 7-day chart below from Coffs) and 20-25kts across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. So, surfable options will be far and few between. 

Next week (Dec 4th onwards)

As the trough crosses Southern NSW on Sunday, it’ll deliver a NW wind change. Due to the orientation of the trough, this is not expected to impact Northern NSW and SE Qld until some time on Monday (earlier in the south, later in the north). 

In fact, we’re not really sure how next week’s winds will pan out because the various atmospheric models are not in agreement regarding the evolution of the trough from Sunday onwards. So, there is a risk that Monday will see northerlies persisting about some coasts (greatest chance for Gold and Sunny and Gold Coasts). 

However, I’m reasonably confident that we’ll see NW winds envelop the Mid North Coast and parts of the Northern Rivers, and the swell combo from the NE and E should generate some good beachies to start the working week. 

The other side of the curveball is that we may (or may not) see a brief spike in south swell Monday across Northern NSW, from a southerly flow on the backside of the trough. If this eventuates it’s likely to be short lived - it’s low confident event right now though so don't get too excited.

Otherwise, the long term outlook maintains a lot of activity in the Northern Tasman and South Pacific, with a series of E’ly dips expected to push up against a strong high pressure system occupying the waters east of New Zealand. There’s also a suggestion that we’ll see a broad trough across the East Coast spin up a local system in the Coral Sea early next week, along with another trough/low off the Northern NSW coast. 

As such, it looks like there’s plenty of E and NE swell to come throughout next week. More on this in Wednesday’s update.