Northern NSW and South East Queensland Surf Forecast (Fri 29th Nov)

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Craig started the topic in Friday, 29 Nov 2013 at 11:41am

Northern NSW and South East Queensland Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 29th November)

Best Days: Every morning from Sunday onwards

Recap

A strong pulse of inconsistent S/SE groundswell peaked yesterday across the North Coast and Goldy with sets to 3-4ft along the former, and 2-3ft waves on the Goldy beaches with larger sets at spots open to the south. Conditions were good early with light offshore winds before fresh sea breezes developed.

Today the S/SE swell has dropped right away, while a new NE windswell is combining to offer 2ft waves at open beaches.

This weekend (Nov 30 – Dec 1)

We'll see a series of S'ly swell pulses over the coming period related to an amplification of the Long Wave Trough moving across the Southern Tasman Sea (pictured right). This will direct cold fronts up through our swell window over the coming days.

Initially a building S/SE windswell should be seen across the coast tomorrow related to a surface trough sliding up the East Coast. Not much size is expected off this system besides a junky 3ft at south facing beaches with fresh to strong S/SE winds.

The swell should ease into Sunday ahead of a stronger S'ly groundswell pulse Sunday afternoon generated by a broad fetch of strong S/SW winds pushing up past Tassie's East Coast this afternoon and evening.

This should keep 3ft sets hitting south swell magnets into Sunday afternoon, with a peak expected Monday morning to 3ft to nearly 4ft. From here wave heights are expected to ease from the S'th as new levels of E/SE swell fill in.

Winds tomorrow will be average and fresh from the S/SW to S/SE with more favourable SW winds early Sunday. Monday looks a little dicey with S'ly winds around the Goldy and Byron region, and SW winds further south.

Next week (Dec 2 onwards)

The surface trough moving up the coast Saturday will kick up a late increase in S/SE swell Saturday across the Goldy and swing more SE into Sunday.

This trough is expected to broaden and move into the Coral Sea early next week, with a fetch of E/SE winds being aimed towards us right until mid-next week (pictured right).

This should kick up some fun E/SE swell for Tuesday and Wednesday to 2-3ft across open beaches before fading into the end of the week.

Longer term some new S'ly swell may be seen next weekend but we'll look at this again Monday.

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mitchvg Saturday, 30 Nov 2013 at 5:30pm

Interestingly, between 2-5 on Thurs, we checked 3 spots. The biggest waves we saw were not at Ballina Head Lookout or Tallows, they were nth...

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Craig Saturday, 30 Nov 2013 at 5:51pm

And how big Mitch?

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mitchvg Saturday, 30 Nov 2013 at 10:33pm

Wed's forecast notes were spot on the money ;) Checked it at 7am and thought it might have been the tide and banks, but held size when we went back