Best Days: Tuesday morning with SW winds for the Mid N Coast and Gold Coast with the peak in the S swell. Plenty of waves but E/SE winds ruin it for the rest of the week. 

Outlook

• Winds are looking to be SE for start of the week and more E/SE later in the week 
• Mid period SE swell for Tuesday, easing throughout the day for Mid N Coast and N NSW peaking for SE QLD
• New S groundswell arrives from polar low on Wednesday for N NSW and Mid N Coast. Doesn’t reach SE QLD.
• Mid period ESE swell to fill in on Wednesday and pulse and ebb for the remainder of the week.

Recap

N/NE winds made for lumpy conditions for most places over the weekend and with only small waves on offer, it was a weekend to forget. 

A S change moved up the coast yesterday arriving on the Mid N Coast in the afternoon, the evening for N NSW and overnight into dawn for SE QLD.

The New Week

Well the new week has brought with it a bit more power to the waves as the S change that moved it’s way up the coast yesterday brought with it a decent S wind swell.

This morning waves were up around 3-5ft for the Mid N Coast while N NSW and SE QLD saw waves building throughout the day from small early to 3-4ft late. Unfortunately strong S winds limited things to S corners for most the day where less S swell filtered in. 

Tomorrow we can expect offshore winds early for the Mid N Coast and Gold Coast while elsewhere is more likely to see S winds tending SE everywhere later in the day making for bumpy conditions for exposed spots and smaller cleaner waves for southern corners. 

For Tuesday, Waves will ease to 3ft for the Mid N Coast, while N NSW has waves up around the 3-4ft mark early then on a downward trend throughout the day. SE QLD will see 3ft waves with the S swell magnets picking up larger sets. 

A solid polar low off Tassie will deliver some decent energy to the Mid N Coast and N NSW on Wednesday. Having travelled a long way it'll be slow and with decent lulls between sets but I’d expect 3-5ft waves for the Mid N Coast and 3-4ft waves for N NSW. SE QLD, as is normally the case with these S swells, will miss out. 

Something that’ll have more impact for SE QLD is the weak low that formed W of New Zealand’s North Island today. It’ll slowly meander N but with it being weak, temporary and aiming most of its swell N, it won’t really impact the Mid N Coast or N NSW. There’ll be a little pulse of SE swell for SE QLD on Thursday though but there’s more of that on the way. 

Winds will generally be out of the SE from Wednesday onwards. A trough along the coast will mean there’ll be plenty of rain as well so there could be windows between squalls with cleaner conditions if you're quick and you time it well but I’d expect it to be lumpy at best. 

These persistent winds are due to a ridge from a blocking high over the Southern Tasman. The squeezing of this ridge by weak tropical activity in the Coral Sea will create an E/SE swell tending more E later in the week. A series of pulses and ebbs in the E/SE swell will occur throughout the remainder of the week. 

On Thursday, we’ll see the E/SE swell build towards a 3-4ft peak on Friday. There'll be smaller waves on Saturday before a solid E pulse arrives on Sunday afternoon into Monday morning creating the largest waves of the week up around the 4-5ft mark for the Mid N Coast, N NSW and SE QLD. 

Winds will remain fairly persistent and out of the E/SE for this entire period meaning wave quality will be down. Protected southern corners will be the pick but I’d expect even them to be a bit lumpy. Expect those spots that are handling the winds best to be the most crowded. 

Next week

The swell will remain out of the E and begin to ease on Monday. The good news is winds look like they’ll finally change on Tuesday. They'll becoming more out of the NE, I know not such good news for SE QLD but it'll open up more options for elsewhere, as the blocking high finally moves east and the coastal trough extends further south.

Further ahead, a potential low moving down from the Coral Sea could intensify out in the Tasman. At this stage it's a fair way off and there is plenty of model disagreement so let's tackle that later on but it’s worth keeping an eye on.