A timely resumption of the endless easterly swell machine
South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 1st February)
Best Days: Super fun waves every day, every coast. Yeeha!
Recap: E’ly swells built through Thursday with some locations in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW reporting occasional 3ft+ sets into the afternoon, though it was certainly a notch or two down in strength from what we usually expect from a trade swell. Size has settled back into the 2-3ft range for much of today and winds have been generally light and variable with sea breezes in this region. Wave heights have been smaller south of Yamba and northerlies were a problem on Thursday; before giving way to fresh southerlies this morning (which have since eased to become light and variable). The southerly did eventually reach as far north as Byron Bay today, though average wind speeds only just nudged 11kts. We’ve also seen a peaky S’ly tending S/SE swell across the Mid North Coast today.
Stacks of lines - albeit very small - at The Pass
Coupla little runners at First Point Noosa
This weekend (Feb 2 - 3)
Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl
A strengthening ridge through the Coral Sea will rebuilding E’ly swells about all coasts this weekend, biggest in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW.
Additionally, a second ridge building through the Central Tasman Sea - narrower in width than the Coral Sea ridge, but a little stronger - will build a secondary E/SE swell, biggest across the Mid North Coast.
In general, most beaches should increase into the 3-4ft range (more likely Saturday in the south, and Sunday in the north), so expect smaller surf prior to this peak. The secondary E/SE swell will ease through Sunday (in the south) but the primary E’ly swell from the Coral Sea ridge will remain active for quite some time (in the north), so no major deviation in surf size is expected for some time across most beaches, though a small downwards recalibration is expected across the Mid North Coast later Sunday and into the first half of next week.
As for winds, the weekend looks pretty good with a steady synoptic pattern both days: moderate E/SE breezes in SE Qld (with isolated pockets of light morning S’ly winds, mainly the southern Gold Coast), with light variable winds and sea breezes across much of the Northern NSW coast.
Either way, there should be fun, workable options at most coasts this weekend.
Next week (Feb 4 onwards)
The trades will remain anchored in the Coral Sea for most of next week, which means we’re looking at a whole week of persistent trade swell.
Wave heights should fluctuate in and around the 3-4ft mark from Monday to Saturday (at least) throughout SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, with slightly smaller surf as you track south from about Ballina. Expect smaller surf running down the points too.
There’s a couple of other interesting swell sources for next week.
A small S/SE groundswell will glance the Northern NSW coast, generated by an intense Southern Ocean low forming well SE of Tasmania into Friday. Unfortunately, it’s developing on the periphery of our swell window and will track away from us at the same time so we'll see just a fraction of the energy reaching our shores. I wouldn’t count on it offering much more than the odd 2ft set at exposed south swell magnets south of Byron Bay, around Tuesday.
In Wednesday’s notes I discussed another Central Tasman Sea ridge (similar to the one developing today) but unfortunately the latest model runs have kept this much further south, so we’ll see only a small SE swell into Wednesday from this source. I don’t think it’ll really show up across our coast.
And lastly, late Wednesday will see a small long period S/SE groundswell nose into the Lower Mid North Coast, originating from an intense polar low developing just off the ice shelf - well south of New Zealand - over the coming days. Model guidance has the leading edge into Coffs Harbour around 6pm with peak swell periods of 15.4 seconds, however it’ll build overnight and peak early Thursday with half a metre of swell at 14.2 seconds.
This is not too dissimilar to the unusual S/SE groundswell we saw last Sun/Mon (which produced occasional 3ft+ sets at south swell magnets across the Mid North Coast, but very little elsewhere) so there's a useful proxy for now. However it'll be extremely inconsistent, and won't favour every coast either. So don't rely on it as a major source of energy.
Long term prospects look good in the tropics. Aside from the sustained trade flow, a series of tropical lows - possibly tropical cyclones - developing in and around the Fijian region look like they’ll intensify and broaden in structure mid-late next week, to the N/NE of New Zealand (see chart below).
This sets up the potential for strong E’ly groundswell building any time from about next Sunday or Monday through much of the following week (beginning Feb 11th). At this stage solid 4-6ft surf looks to be a reasonable prospect for exposed coasts by the middle of that week, though we need quite a few more days before we can be confident.
Have a great weekend, see you Monday!
Comments
Well ain't that a cherry way to start the weekend! Hope you all get some :)
You little ripper!
Cold , green , small , weak , high tide line thick with bluebottles.
But the wind is light offshore !
Looks like a swell time ahead.
A timely resumption of the endless easterly swell* machine
*wind
Super fun 3ft+ peaks this arvo with no wind, though a weird warbly lineup with rips galore.
No wind.....? Or just a workable 10-15kn zephyr.
There’s definitely more energy in the water . Probably a wave around somewhere.
Caught a cobia instead.
I think my days groveling wonky beachies are coming to a close. It’s a bit sad to see the fire of passion splutter a bit . Having said that , It’d be a different story if it was warm and blue as opposed to cold and giardia shit green .
Blowin did you catch the cobia out wide ? Whats the water colour out wider?
is this wobbly, onshore, 2ft shite the "easterly swell machine" kicking in?
The structural problem remains entrenched. Weak high pressure leading to unconsolidated, patchy wind fields with low wind speeds and a total lack of a fully developed sea state.
A good Tradewind fetch punches above it's weight due to the fully developed sea state. These fetches are continually punching below their weight due to the lack of same.
The longer term outlook looks similarly hamstrung now with the tropical low pressure systems from the current MJO phase suffering from a lack of strong cradling highs.
Something is broken here.
Interesting observations FR. Maybe it’s the end of the Spring / beginning of Summer, spluttering into action. Same shit different months, now?
Simba - I only ventured 5kms or so offshore - bit of guess work how far it really was . Water was still putrid green that wide. Saw something chopping up further out but not much evidence of action any closer to shore for me .The current might be coming in with the tide now .
Got the cobia on the edge of the low tide run out water at a rivermouth on a live slimy mackerel. Maybe 400 metres offshore. Seems to be a bit of bait around.
Slimy mackeral best bait live or dead around.....if the currents out there it wont take long to push in with se winds.....
Head high surf, occasional plus sets and two snapped boards in half an hour within 500m.
Sure, far from epic. But super fun. Dunno why there was no wind as obs show moderate SE sea breezes at Cooly and Byron. Just reporting what I saw/surfed.
nothing worth on sunny coast.
So much for the great trade swell,nothing but very small point waves and mega crowds.
BTW, for those that didn’t quite read the forecast notes properly, Sunday was when I was expecting to see the increase a little more noticeably. Saturday was always expected to be undersized.
There was 3ft sets around today.
Unreal.. so we are already at the lower end of forecast expectations. Should see a little more size (and strength) gradually start to show from tomorrow onwards.
I think those 3 ft sets on the MNC were from a thin fetch in the central Tasman, which shows up pretty clearly on the ASCAT pass..
I surfed Australias most easterly backbeach and swell magnet yesterday and today. Yesterday was sheet glass but ultra weak barely 2ft.
Today was sloppy, onshore 2ft+. Maybe a 3ft wave here and there. But pure gurgle.
headhigh? Yeah, maybe on the 6yr old girl who was out there.
Definitely a new energy in the water late this arv and the water is warming up quickly too. Yesterday morning was icy in steamer with numb, burning sensation in hands and feet. This morning comfortable in 2mm steamer and this arv a quick blast in boardies. Man it felt good.
I feel your pain !
South beaches had a decent kick in south swell yesterday, 3-4 ft.
Hopefully cleans out some of the weed and dirty water. Like you said Ben, those sea temps have really kicked on the wave buoys so warm water is very close in, just needed the wind to stay south a bit more.
In terms of season analogies there are now heaps of sea hares in the water, just like the summer of 06/07, so interesting to see if what is left of the summer pans out the same way
Unreal mate, which coast are you on?
And what's your thinking re: sea hares - or is that just an observation?
Fair bit more energy this morning. First light looked ordinary but once that land breeze kicked in turned beautiful. Good 3 foot and handled the high tide quite well where I was.
Water warmed up dramatically today also.
Lower MNC. Can see the south swell jump on the Crowdy wave buoy and then swing SE.
http://new.mhl.nsw.gov.au/data/realtime/wave/Buoy-crhdow
I reckon the sea hares are the culmination of the summer synoptic pattern of coastal drought, constant NE winds, cold water upwellings and algal blooms that have allowed their numbers to build.
This late in the season you would hope that synoptic pattern would now break down especially with active monsoon.... doesn’t seem to be though.
The waves are being sabotaged by the wind or the invisible man with a fan. We had a good run of waves late in the season last year. I recall The joy of being burnt, waterlogged and unable to hear.
Fun summer trade swell across the Goldy today (second frame grab at The Alley is overhead out the back).
Still four and a bit hours until low tide too, so it'll only get better over the next little while.
those MNC sea hares have always been a spring/early summer phenomena far as I can remember.
2, maybe 3ft where I surfed this morning. More energy than yesterday? Being generous, maybe a beesdick. Still very weak energy swell. Gurgle is still the best word for it.
Light and variable winds, glassy/lumpy surface conditions. Crazy crowds. Warm water.
ASCAT pass still shows weak and poorly organised, patchy broad scale fetch in near South Pac and CS.
E'ly is up and blowing now.
Ain't no gurgle on the Gold Coast. Looks super fun to me. Winds are now down to 11kts at the Seaway and 6kts in Cooly too.
Rubbish on the SC (early) today. A few diamonds in the rough tho.
yeah,sunny coast is shite, and points are unbelieveably crowded, couldnt get a carpark at national park noosa at 4am. Headlights just kept coming over the hill,you would swear it was pumping. OMG
Atleast the crowds were down were I surfed. I can't remember the last time I bothered with Noosa.
Wind only just puffing up now here. Been fishing since 6AM . Ocean was a confused mess at first , about 4 different shitty swells in the mix plus a bit of bonus chop. Water still putrid green . Temp started off 21 degrees and it was just hitting 24 a few minutes ago. Still green.
Lots of bony herring getting about , smashed by dolphins. Caught fuck all . Dropped a horse cobia on a knife jig .
Check the braid rope that connect the hooks on those things. It perishes over time which can lead to heartbreak and high - decibel vocalisations.
Waves ? No idea. It’s Sunday , they can have it.
Onshore 3ft here.
Me and a noted Swellnet contributor checked a local point.
We stood there for an hour.
Might come back in an hour......yeah, see you then.
Quality?
No one out.
I might fish instead. One of the local Points that is gutted has had absolutely horse tailor packed in there lately.
Wind obs are funny at the moment. Obs from Ballina (airport) show a reduction in speeds, but there's no change in windspeeds inshore. I'd say 12-15knots. Enough to blow up popcorn.
Hi
Does anyone know why superbank (snapper all the way through) is so shit this year. Ive lived in region for 3 years and ive never seen the banks this bad. For instance last year the trade swells were super fun. Yesterday i got out the water coz it was so shit on low tide? Thanks
A couple of theories
a) There was a very large messy east swell early spring that gutted all the sand from GC through nth nsw. There hasn’t been any swell from a southern direction to push sand from out back and down the point
b) northerly windsell swell are chewing holes into any sand that was already there
hasn't the sand pumping only recently resumed in the past couple of weeks?
The wind has dropped and it has improved a lot.
Time to put on the puka shell necklace and paddle to the north shore. (just across the river.)
Its not the quality trades its all hyped up to be, ahhh just wait for the next cyclone.
Where was the hype?
It was 3ft + maybe early but so lumpy and rippy barely worth getting wet for ...but could be worse......i think
Had a Tweed back beach this arvo on the outgoing tide with 4 others, fun 3-4 ft peaks with pretty strong sets, easterly wind but not enough to mess it up. Water back to being warm too - bluebottles were the only detractor as they started to invade the lineup.
Managed a quick surf along the Miami/Nobbys/Mermaid stretch early arvo, a little lumpy but some nice peaky 3ft+ sets. Scored a bluebottle wrap around my foot too. Ouch!
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to surf on the way home but there was no wind on the Tweed and the waves looked unreal.
Surfed a local point with a noted SN contributor.
there was some fun chunks for a while at first, then a flotilla of bluebottles moved in, which cleared the crowd, but unfortunately it must have meant the wind line was close by because the surf deteriorated into ultra gurgle.
Sounds very much like this "endless easterly swell machine" is very much a carbon copy of the last one.
Favouring tweed coast beachies, mostly shithouse on the Points due to poor banks and accompanied by a constant onshore wind that seems to backdown at odd times during the day.
the long range looks interesting but ultimately a major let-down as tropical low pressure, lacking a cradling high smashes into New Zealand.
Spring was consistent albeit nothing inspiring.
According to my diaries, the last quality swell with good winds was the end of August.
Long time between drinks.
Getting barrelled seems a very distant memory.
Have a look at the latest SST anomaly chart : http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/indicator_sst.jsp?c=ssta
Cool in the CS and near South Pac, warm in the Tasman. Thats the structural problem.
I was out across one of the rivers over there once. ‘Hi’ Pete was actually staying with me. They always told us it was breaking like... but it weren’t... again... ‘Hi’ had had a gutsfull by then, and refused to paddle. ‘Don’t fuck’n do it... it’s fuck’n drugs...’ I could still hear him laughing about half way across. Sure enough... again, it was breaking nothing like it, but fun enough... and anything would be better than having to jump in at that fucking point with the dropper hammered into it... again... one last time... again...
Anyway it had been raining so it was brown sludge and muck, and it looked like a fucking shit load of rubbish and plastic bags was washing in with the tide. It turned out that it was actually an an attack of the world’s biggest swarm of blue bottles. Everyone got surrounded and trapped. Bloodcurdling screams echoed across the river to the car park, where ‘Hi’ and gorilla were excitedly waiting.
I had to train a gazza local next morning and he said I should have gone up there, ta the gazza, ‘coz they had this left around the back that was breaking like...’ I noticed his plethora of welts too. Anyway I went up there a few times with him when ‘ it wuz on’. ‘Hi’ and gorilla had already long bolted by then. It was good fun... the drive back anyway...
Gazza stayed with me back over west. When he got absolutely, ludicrously smashed to smithereens, viciously and remorselessly body slammed into the limestone by a block of flats, he said lots stuff... again... but it was indecipherable blather.
4’ + beach breaks at dark, had some grunt
Despite the high tide, there are some nice lines of swell pushing through Byron this morning.
Ventured to the MNC on the weekend and Saturday was chunky and busy at the local magnet, 4ft with 5ft bombs, while yesterday was 3ft+ all day and 3ft at other breaks. Mostly swell off that E/SE fetch though.
Hey Craig , were you in the same vicinity as the time I ran into you ?
I'm sorry but the Ballina report this morning:
Winds: Light E
Weather: partly cloudy
Rating: 5/10
Plenty of fun waves this morning. The early high tide is swallowing up a lot of the size and energy but it'll get better as the water drains off the banks, winds are light so conditions are clean and there's 3ft+ of easterly swell on offer. Well worth a paddle if you can swing it.
Is total and complete Bullshit.
Why publish total BS? It saps the credibility from the rest of the site.
And people are paying money for that.
Better not to have a report at all.
What is wrong about the report?
Seems to match up perfectly with the Byron surfcam screenshot above. Clean, light winds, 3ft+, full tide, will get better later.
It's completely wrong Ben.
E'ly winds blew all night here and are now ENE. The surf is a total mess, there is no one out because it is so bad.
It's false advertising to charge people money for a so called observational report that is in actual fact a guess made by someone who hasn't even seen it.
Businesses get called in front of the ACCC and asked to please explain for doing that shit.
Why not be honest and let people know it's not an actual report?
The pass stays pretty clean in an easterly.
In fact it's almost offshore if younlook at the map below.
Ballina to lennox stretch today was a sloppy mess from first light. And it is the Ballina report not the pass report.
A total mess? When average wind speeds at the Byron lighthouse have been under 10kts since 10am yesterday? How do you describe surf conditions after a day of 25kt onshores?
As it is, we all know that the lighthouse AWS exaggerates wind speeds too. Winds speeds at other coastal obs stations in the near vicinity have been similarly light (under 10kts) since yesterday afternoon.
And the surfcam image above shows that it's certainly not a 'total mess'. Live vision (not paywalled either) show that conditions haven't changed since this morning either. https://www.swellnet.com/surfcams/byron-bay
Yeh, I looked at the obs this morning and was frothing for a wave thinking it would be pretty good as it was half decent yesterday arvo.
Was a different story when I got to the beach despite what the BOM obs said.
Drive by along the Tweed was nice and clean this morning with next to no wind. Tide way too full though, I'm gonna sneak a midday surf around low.
Yeh, I'm still hoping to get a wave on the outgoing. But "winds are light so conditions are clean" was completely wrong for Ballina to Lennox.
Missingham bridge was kind of clean I guess.
And I think a midday surf will be a mid-tide surf, correct me if I'm wrong, Ben ;)
Shite.. had it in my head that we had a 2pm low tide so was gonna surf around lunch. You are indeed correct.
It'll still be better than it is now though! As it is, it's a pretty low low anyway. So mid tide will be better.
The problem Ben, as you know, is the deliberate misinformation.
You know these are not real observations of the Ballina stretch.
Yet, you advertise it as such and charge people money for that service.
Thats an unethical business practice at best.
There is no deliberate misinformation. Swellnet provides a wide range of services for surfers, and the business is funded by a split revenue model (that is slowly evolving over time). In the case of the surf reports, advertising is the primary funding source (because the reports are free to access for around 21 hours of the day).
Our surf reports are provided free of charge after 9am, so prospective subscribers are encouraged to view the surf reports for a few weeks to see if they find it to their liking.
If they choose to subscribe, they'll be able to view the dawn/morning surf reports a few hours earlier than non-subscribers, plus have access to Premium surfcams, long range surf forecasts and detailed Forecaster Notes.
If surfers choose to not subscribe, that's fine - they're welcome to wait until 9am, or source their surf reports from elsewhere (of which I note the only other daily surf report for Ballina is reporting a bigger rating than Swellnet today - 6/10 - and also stating that the morning winds are/were light SW).
That's all froth and blabber.
You are claiming and selling the Ballina surf report as an observed report and it's not.
As I said, the ACCC takes a very dim view of businesses misleading consumers and selling something that is not what it says on the tin.
In your case, you can't even claim that the misleading wasn't intentional, not that that is a defence.
To use as a defence that the other mob is doing it is pretty lame.
It's an easy fix, either pay a reporter to do the job and provide the service that you are selling or change the website so people aren't being misled.
Swellnet has a national network of paid surf reporters.
Some reporters are incredibly reliable, like clockwork each morning. Other reporters are not. Some reporters have a lovely turn of phrase, and know their coastline like the back of their hand. Other reporters don't have quite the same level of skill at writing, and only see surf conditions through their narrow lens of personal experience, which can be highly variable.
Some reporters have been with us for fifteen years or more. Others last a few weeks/months and find they're not into the daily routine as much as they thought they'd be, so they move on. And when that happens - sometimes with notice, sometimes without - we have to find someone brand new to fill in their shoes. Sometimes that's easy, sometimes that's hard. Sometimes near-impossible. But, as a small business we persevere onwards (as don't have a surf report recruitment team waiting in the wings). As I said, there's certainly no deliberate misinformation. For a very small core team (3.5 staff), Swellnet provides an enormous amount of content and resources. By way of an example, when Magic Seaweed sold to SurfStitch a few years back, they had 27 staff. My understanding is that Surfline has over 100 staff. And a couple of years ago, Coastalwatch had around 30 staff. So, we manage to do a pretty good job with what we have.
I also don't think it's right that you continually take pot shots at our Northern NSW surf reports/forecasts, seeing you were formerly paid to provide this very service for a number of years. As such your continual attacking comes across as that of a disgruntled former reporter, rather than someone with genuine concern.
On another note, we are actually expanding our surf report team into a few new areas over the coming months. As such, we'll be putting a call out for new reporters for these coasts shortly (by way of an article on the site, detailing what we're after), but also asking for expressions of interest for existing surf report locations (we do occasionally receive emails from people "if so-and-so ever stops doing the XXX surf report, please let me know as I'd love to take over").
I think it's probably good to have a number of backup reporters, especially in the event that a reporter head off OS for a few weeks or a month, as occasionally happens.
Go on a road trip Mr. Shearer. Perhaps further afield than your normal 5km radius
I don't continually take pot shots Ben, I very rarely comment on it.
99.99% of my comments on this site have nothing to do with the running of SN.
So playing the man and not the ball is off base.
Lostdoggy has very politely pointed out on a number of occasions that there is no "photo after 8am" and that it's clearly not an observed surf report and hasn't been for a very long time.
Yet, you charge people money for it as if it was.
Aren't you embarrassed to deceive people like that?
What about the poor bastard who lives in Lismore or Alstonville and actually needs the service......you charge him/her money for a guess that is usually inaccurate, sometimes wildly so as in this mornings case.
I'm only commenting on this mornings report because it's so very wrong and your hamfisted attempts at justifying it are just digging a deeper hole.
If you get caught out bullshitting it's best to apologise and come clean, not keep digging.
The problem would be solved if only we had a Lennox Head surfcam. I wonder whatever happened to that?
people power rising up against unwanted corporate surveillance.
And thank god for that.
Observed would imply someone was physically there looking at it and not just going off yesterdays conditions or whichever websites cameras they choose to view. Is this not the case? I don't really care either way, just interested. It can often look much cleaner on the cams than it is IRL.
‘‘Twas clean 3-4’ beachies this morning. Not as much grunt as last night,
Likely due to that bit more tide on it.
How similar is this to last run of a swell?
I went out mid morning it went from infernal gurgle to some decent pits.
Good fun this morning.
Cold , but uncrowded and little runners.
I am calling for a royal commission into surf reporting.
Ha ha! Nice one. I do have to sympathise with Ben in this case though. They're only a small operation and they seem to do pretty well with the limited resources they have.
Freeride76 - “Surfed a local point with a noted SN contributor.”
Not the big bell-end from Elliston? Who else could it be..
Andy M ?
I was wondering myself .
Dunno about being from Elliston but I had a swollen bell-end after that bluebottle experience the other day.
Anyone here actually been stung on the block and tackle? I imagine it would be a world of pain.