South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 19th November)

Best Days: Wed: chance for some building SE swell across Northern NSW, with pockets of good conditions as N'ly winds veer more NW. Thurs: peaky mix of swells out of the SE (biggest in Northern NSW) and N'ly windswell (biggest around the Gold/Tweed/Byron coasts), with winds veering more NW. Fri: clean mix of swells, mainly SE and biggest in Northern NSW, with W'ly winds. Sat/Sun: strong S'ly swells across exposed south swell magnets in Northern NSW, not much in SE Qld. 

Recap: Hands up who scored good waves over the weekend? Saturday was super fun with early glassy conditions and 2-3ft of easing E’ly swell, Sunday delivered freshening SE winds and building E’ly swells that reached a pretty punchy 4ft+ across exposed spots in Northern NSW, smaller along the SE Qld region, and with unreal runners down the points. Size has eased throughout today but winds were light offshore early across many regions (except the Sunny Coast and Yamba), before freshening from the SE during the day.  

This week (Nov 20 - 23)

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We have a wide range of swells on the way, which is very exciting. 

Wave heights will ease through Tuesday, and we’ve got strengthening N’ly winds for the next few days as a complex trough pushes across Southern NSW. Early morning should see light NW winds and this will be the best time to aim for a surf, though it's not worth getting too excited about.

Into Wednesday and Thursday, as the trough starts to push across the Southern NSW coast, winds slowly will veer more to the NW across the coastal margin though there’ll be periods of N’ly winds at times. This should start to improve surface conditions, mainly across Northern NSW on Wednesday (more broadly across all regions on Thursday). 

These northerlies will extend a reasonable distance north of the SE Qld region, upstream in our immediate N’ly swell window, and will thus generate some local windswell into Wednesday afternoon and early Thursday, peaking with sets around 2-3ft at exposed north facing locations of the Gold, Tweed and Byron Coasts (with smaller surf across the Sunshine Coast, and south from about Ballina). 

However with local winds reaching 20-25kts out of the north as the swell peaks Wednesday afternoon, there won’t be a great deal of locations benefiting from this swell source. Thursday morning should see better conditions but surf size will be easing by this time.

But, it doesn't end there, as we have some new SE swell on the way around the same time.

A strong front pushing through the lower SE corner of the Tasman Sea yesterday has reinvigorated the remnants of a small low responsible for an underlying SE swell over the weekend, and this is strengthening a S’ly tending S/SE fetch off the west coast of New Zealand's South Island. 

The main energy from this system expected to build slowly from Wednesday onwards towards a peak on Thursday afternoon, before easing slowly through Friday. However, it’s difficult to have confidence in the exact playout of this swell, because of the way the responsible low slowly evolves over the course of a few days - this will create a much less defined swell front, and we’ll probably see a gradual increase-plateau-decrease pattern rather than a rapid peak and then easing trend, as is more common.

As such, given Wednesday’s more dominant N’ly flow ahead of a broader NW airstream into Wednesday - tending more W’ly into Friday - you’ll be best aiming for the last two days of the week for the best conditions and most size. South facing beaches south from Byron should see inconsistent 3-4ft sets at the height of the SE swell (late Thursday), with smaller surf in the leadup, and then following the peak.

This swell won’t offer much across SE Qld, just a few 2ft+ sets at exposed northern ends later Thursday and early Friday, with smaller surf elsewhere. However the beaches will be nice and clean under this airstream and there’ll be some peaky N’ly swell in the mix too.

Also on the cards for late Friday across the Mid North Coast is a possible strong southerly swell, generated by a deep low east of Bass Strait on Thursday. This is more likely to show over the weekend across Northern NSW (and is discussed in more detail below). 

This weekend (Nov 24 - 25)

On Thursday, a developing low east of Bass Strait is expected to generate gale force W’ly winds across Southern NSW. 

Most of the resulting swell will be aimed fair and square into New Zealand, however as we’re looking at seeing a slight degree of south in the fetch alignment (mainly exiting eastern Bass Strait), we should see a decent spread of S’ly swell up the East Coast, assisted by its slow moving nature - which is somewhat unusual.

Followup south swells are expected to train behind the initial leading edge, which should reach the Mid North Coast late Friday and then remaining Northern NSW coasts overnight. As such we’re looking at a whole weekend of fluctuating swell out of the south, with a very broad range in surf size thanks to the acute swell direction.

At this stage I’m not expecting much, if any swell to make an impact north of the border away from exposed northern ends in SE Qld, which may see occasional 1-2ft sets, plus some residual swell from Friday.

South from Byron, we’re looking at very small surf across protected southern corners  around 1ft, up to 2-3ft at most open beaches, and then possibly 4-5ft+ at reliable south swell magnets. Keeping in mind that the upper end of this size range may end up being just a handful of beaches between Seal Rocks and Byron Bay. So this means you’ll need to keep your expectations pegged appropriately low for any notable size. But the potential is certainly there.. this Tasman Low looks like it’ll be quite strong.  

As for conditions, it’s quite likely we’ll see mainly W’ly winds both days. So at this stage it’s shaping up for a flukey but clean and favourable weekend for Northern NSW, but not much across SE Qld. 

Next week (Nov 26 onwards)

If the model guidance is to be believed, this Tasman Low will remain slow moving through the weekend, spinning up secondary S/SE fetches along its southern flank that’ll provide good S’ly tending SE swells through the start of next week.

Let’s wait and see how the next few days pan out, eh?