Solid E/SE swell next week; average conditions though

Ben Matson picture
Ben Matson (thermalben)

South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 17th November)

Best Days: Sun: average peaky E'ly swell. Mon/Tues/Wed: solid E/SE swell peaking late Mon/early Tues, though mainly onshore winds will confine the best waves to sheltered points. 

Recap: Small residual swells with light winds and sea breezes. 

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

This weekend (Nov 18th - 19th)

There’s been some moderate activity in our distant eastern swell window over the last few days, so this plus a building ridge through the Northern Tasman Sea right now will slowly build average trade swell energy across our coasts over the weekend.

No great size or strength is expected, and winds will be generally onshore (possibly light and variable for brief periods, in the mornings), but there’ll be rideable waves reaching 2ft at open beaches on Saturday and 2-3ft on Sunday

There may be a slight lag on this upwards trend so early Saturday may come in below expectations. Early Sunday is probably your best chance for a fun beach break, but keep your expectations low. 

Next week and beyond (Nov 20th onwards)

A large blocking high will remain in position through the Tasman Sea for much of next week, resulting in generally light variable winds across Southern NSW, but moderate E/SE winds across Northern NSW and SE Qld.

This will confine the best waves to protected points and southern corners. The ridge won’t be particularly strong, so there’s a chance for periods of light winds in the early mornings, but on the balance it’s looking a little lumpy and bumpy for open locations. 

So, I’ve been tracking the much-discussed incoming E/NE swell for two weeks now (first mentioned in these Forecaster Notes on Nov 3rd), and since then the system has upgraded and downgraded itself many times.

Now that we’re right on the cusp of formation, I’m actually not much more confident on what surf will eventuate, mainly because the primary fetch isn’t expected to consolidate very well - and the main region of swell generation will occur very close to New Zealand’s North Island (with the fetch aimed up into the Coral Sea). 

It’s worth reiterating a point I made in Wednesday’s notes: the fetch’s most direct coastal target is the Sunshine Coast. However, the coastal alignment north of the border swings back to the NNW, so swell energy from this direction arrives at a slightly obtuse angle, favouring exposed northern ends for the most size and producing slightly smaller waves across the outer points (relative to exposed beaches on an E/SE facing coast like Ballina), with even smaller surf across the protected points.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great direction for the SE Qld coast. But this swell direction usually produces the biggest surf across the Tweed and Byron coasts, and then - because of the fetch’s latitude just north of New Zealand's North Island - usually results in slightly smaller waves south from Yamba. Not much, but enough to discuss in these notes.

However there’s a reasonably healthy period of development occurring upstream right now and this will provide some useful background energy throughout the course of the event.

The timing of this swell event looks like trending upwards rapidly on Monday (though peak wave heights probably won’t be in the water early morning) before peaking late afternoon and overnight, holding into early Tuesday. Surf size will then easily steadily through Wednesday

Wave heights will be largest across the Far Northern NSW coast with open beaches pushing 4-6ft (Tweed, Ballina coasts), whereas open beaches and outer points across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts should see 4-5ft surf. Expect smaller waves running down the points - most likely where you'll be surfing - and into sheltered southern ends.

Surf size may also be fractionally smaller south from Yamba (compared to locations further north) but local winds will be the same, so your most likely surfing size range will be smaller across protected locations. 

Overall, it looks like a very fun E’ly swell event but certainly not epic. 

Looking beyond our mid-week east swell, and the Tasman Sea ridge will broaden later in the week, maintaining reasonable levels of trade swell as the E/SE groundswell steadily abates (say, 2-3ft across SE Qld to finish the week). 

In fact, it’s now looking like a broad trough will develop across the coast into the weekend, strengthening E’ly winds and developing a much more significant local system very close to the mainland (compared to recent/current systems). 

Model guidance is suggesting a windy 6ft short range swell for SE Qld later next weekend and early next week (even up to 6-8ft on Tuesday), which, while somewhat optimistic in the size department, seems to be a reasonably good outlook as to the likely trend. That is: very solid, with dicey conditions for a few days. But plenty of swell, which at this time of the year is always very welcome.

More on this in Monday’s update. 

Comments

curly2alex's picture
curly2alex's picture
curly2alex Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 at 12:14am

Downgrade on next weekend already !!

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 at 7:35am

Was always gonna happen. Long range model guidance for weather systems close the mainland are towards the bottom end of the reliable scale.

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 at 7:37am

Very gracious for old mate at Currumbin to go over the falls (first image), in such a way for his board to be a useful wave height measuring instrument.


thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 at 8:09am

ASCAT readings now in: it's an impressive fetch except for the alignment.

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 at 7:00pm

The word "except" never goes down well from a swell forecaster.

kavachi's picture
kavachi's picture
kavachi Sunday, 19 Nov 2017 at 9:28am

great fetch for up north tho, couple of thousand k's of GBR be lighting up

any scope for this swell in western Sols u reckon Ben? as it spreads? or is NuCal gonna block everything?

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 6:32am

Around the grounds, Monday morning edition.

Tiny at Noosa, long flat spells then one of these every ten minutes:

Sunshine is a mess. Looks 3-4ft tops and very ordinary:

Coolum is wobbly though workable:

A bit ordinary at Moffs too:

Alex is slow, fat and busy (when is it not either of those three?):

On to the Gold Coast, and Burleigh is showing the size the best with sets around 4ft:

Though surface conditions aren't great.

Currumbin is about the same, with the odd clean section (actually, it's reasonably busy but everyone is out of frame):

Kirra is breaking though only just - and high tide is still three hours away. Can't see it being worthwhile here until early afternoon.

Rainbow to Cooly is small but clean with a few little runners.

Snapper is a bit ordinary, though I did get a decent grab on the surfcams of someone getting barrelled:

It's a bit glarey at D'Bah but enough to see that it's a dog's breakfast.

And down at The Pass, it's small and weak for now.

waxyfeet's picture
waxyfeet's picture
waxyfeet Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 7:39am

Sunny coast got skunked with the wind - Burleigh's looking good from those pics .

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 8:09am

Winds are already S’ly at the Seaway gusting 22kts, and they’re ESE gusting 30kts at Cape Moreton. So away from the Cooly stretch it’s gonna become pretty bumpy pretty soon.

mugofsunshine's picture
mugofsunshine's picture
mugofsunshine Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 8:57am

Hey Stu, Ben, Craig etc Just wanted to say thanks for not splashing this over every social media platform there is. It's why I pay my subscription.

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 9:03am

Thanks mate.

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 12:16pm

Had a quick paddle out the front of the office. Inconsistent sets around 3ft (open beaches should be bigger near 4ft+) but the sweep was off the chain. Barely worth trying to paddle to keep position.

crg's picture
crg's picture
crg Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 1:35pm

"Alex is slow, fat and busy (when is it not either of those three?):"
Hahaha...so true.

PS. The Pass is still small, weak and as a bonus - extremely crowded.

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 1:47pm

Byron actually looked good on the cam when I checked it a little while ago, better than earlier (though that wasn't hard to do!).

Certainly ain't epic double-overhead points though. 

crg's picture
crg's picture
crg Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 2:28pm

Yeah it looks ok...but it surfs terrible and weak...big holes in the sand and fat sections. Some pretty ok waves nearby though.

mitchvg's picture
mitchvg's picture
mitchvg Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 2:02pm

Ding! Buoys are registering a groundswell now. Too bad the ACCESS model ended up going the way GFS tends to, later and later and squashing to the SE

freeride76's picture
freeride76's picture
freeride76 Monday, 20 Nov 2017 at 2:08pm

v. weird surf.