South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 22nd December)

Best Days: Tues/Wed/Thurs: building short range SE swell, biggest in Northern NSW. 

Recap: The surf’s been tiny in general. A small S’ly groundswell pushed across Southern NSW today offering 3ft sets across Hunter beaches, and although it appeared on the Sydney buoys with peak swell periods of 16 seconds, none of the Northern NSW buoys seem to have detected it very well. However our Coffs surfcam (which faces due south, and is a reliable swell magnet) is showing occasional 2ft sets. 

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

Small lines of new S’ly swell at Coffs Harbour this afternoon

This weekend (Dec 23rd - 24th)

The weekend forecast isn’t great. A small increase in surf will occur across SE Qld, thanks to a brief pulse of trades south of New Caledonia on Thursday, but we won’t see much size. 

South swell magnets south of Byron Bay may also pick up some small S’ly swell both days, originating from the Southern Ocean low that produced strong surf in Victoria on Thursday (and again today), punching higher than forecast. Model guidance actually has 0.4m at 15 seconds on Sunday (around the Coffs region) which is better than today’s and tomorrow's model prediction (nothing!) - though it’s very hard to have confidence in the likely size.

However, it's a reasonable assumption that reliable south swell magnets will pick up a little more size (both days) than what was seen today. 

The biggest problem this weekend will be the winds - out of the north, only light to moderate on Saturday (initially variable in SE Qld and Far northern NSW) but they’ll strengthen through Sunday to become fresh and gusty on the Mid North Coast. We won’t see as much strength up north but with only small weak swells on offer it’ll be hard to find anywhere decent. 

Next week (Dec 25th onwards)

Small residual swells and freshening northerly winds will pad out Xmas Day as a southerly change approaches from the south. It’ll reach the Mid North Coast into the afternoon though it’s also expected to stall in this vicinity for the rest of the week, which means light variable winds across most coasts from Tuesday onwards. Remember, variable means 'from any direction' which could be onshore. 

Fortunately, a ridge will build through the central Tasman Sea around the same time and this will build SE swells across the region through Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday before easing into Friday. With the Mid North Coast being most closely positioned to this fetch, we’ll see the most size here, peaking around 3ft on Wednesday. Expect slightly smaller surf through to the border (2-3ft) and smaller surf across most of the Gold Coast’s open beaches (1-2ft) with marginally smaller surf again on the Sunny Coast (1-1.5ft). Either side of Wednesday's peak will see smaller surf though Tuesday should see a decent upwards trend across the Mid North Coast due to it being close to the source. 

There’ll also be some small S’ly swell in the mix, originating from a front traversing the southern Tasman Sea, but it won’t provide any more size than mentioned above. 

Elsewhere, a tropical low developing near Fiji this weekend will generally develop inside the swell shadow of New Caledonia, and it’ll be aligned out of our swell window anyway. By the time it tracks south early next week it’s expected to dissipate. 

The only other system of interest is a deep subtropical low developing well east of New Zealand early next week, in fact so far east that'll it'll be due south of Tahiti.

Ordinarily, weather systems this far east (and south) are too remote to be considered favourable swell sources, however this system is expected to remain very slow moving, which increases the swell potential, and core wind speeds are expected to be quite strong, with a strong supporting ridge to the south elongating the fetch considerably. So periods will be reasonable too (11-12 seconds).  

Set waves from this source will be extremely inconsistent but should arrive next weekend, providing extremely inconsistent 2ft, maybe 2-3ft sets to a handful of well exposed beaches north from Byron - though it could be twenty minutes or more between waves.

Regardless, in the absence of any other swell event, this may be quite useful. I’ll have more on this in Monday’s update.

Have a great weekend!