Extended run of mediocrity ahead
South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 11th March)
Best Days: No great days. Thurs/Fri for small peaky waves at exposed beaches with periods of light winds.
Recap: Easing E’ly swell over the weekend offered fun small peaky waves on Saturday morning across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, before size eased into the afternoon and further into Sunday. The easing size was compounded by freshening northerly winds. A small pulse of S’ly groundswell glanced a handful of beaches in Northern NSW late Sunday but it came in under budget (a shame too, as Southern NSW peaked around 3-4ft from the same swell, earlier in the day). Today has seen freshening N’ly winds and small weak swells across the coast.
Next week (Mar 12 - 15)
Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl
*this week's Forecaster Notes will be occasionally brief and erratic, as Craig is on annual leave*
The waves aren’t looking especially flash this week.
A trough is sliding up the NSW coast, with a gusty southerly change in its wake. We’ll see light variable winds across much of Northern NSW on Tuesday, but lingering N’ly winds are likely in SE Qld, possibly down to Ballina but strongest north from the Gold Coast. They may generate some local windswell for exposed beaches in SE Qld but no real quality is expected.
Additionally, there won’t be much surf on offer south from Ballina, to capitalise on the more favourable winds in this region.
Strengthening S’ly winds in the wake of the change on Wednesday will generate southerly windswells, but they’ll mainly favour Northern NSW’s south facing beaches, and it’ll be wind affected at those locations picking up the size. Everywhere else will be very small, including SE Qld.
The rest of the week looks pretty average too. We’ll see easing S’ly swells across Northern NSW but a small mid-range SE swell on Thursday thanks to a developing mid-week ridge through the Tasman Sea. This should maintain 3ft sets at exposed beaches south from Byron (mainly south facing; smaller elsewhere) but size will ease into the afternoon and further into Friday. Again, expect very small surf in SE Qld.
Elsewhere, and an E’ly dip currently developing between New Caledonia and Fiji will slide south throughout the week, but without any appreciable strength. We’ll see small E’ly swells fill into the coast around Thursday or Friday, perhaps maintaining inconsistent 2ft+ sets at open beaches. Locally troughy synoptics should maintain light variable winds and sea breezes.
This weekend (Mar 16 - 17)
There’s really nothing of any great interest standing out for the weekend at this stage.
Essentially, the Tasman Sea will be devoid of major weather systems on Friday so we’re looking small residual swells for both days of the weekend, the more dominant swell trains being the small E’ly swell we’re expecting later this week. It should keep open beaches flush with slow, inconsistent 2ft+ sets every so often, but there won’t be a lot of push in the surf and it'll be tidally susceptible too.
Winds looks tricky thanks to a wide range in model guidance but the most likely outcome is moderate S/SE breezes, lighter and more S/SW early, thanks to a shallow southerly change pushing along the coast.
Northern NSW may also pick up a small southerly swell from a decent polar front travelling north through our southern swell window later this week. At this stage it’s not expected to display much strength, but this alignment - if it comes off - may kick up 2-3ft sets at south swell magnets (it’ll be worth keeping an eye on for possible upgrades over the coming days).
Next week (Mar 18 onwards)
There’s a lot of interesting features on the long term charts, some of which are quite plausible (broadening E’ly fetch NE of New Zealand over the weekend and into next week) and some of which are much less certain and require a variety of circumstances to eventuate (Cat 5 TC in the northern Coral Sea, and a concurrent deep low in the central/Southern Tasman Sea, otherwise a deepening coastal trough over Southern NSW).
In short, next week looks like being pretty dynamic but I’ll take a closer look on Wednesday.
Comments
Gotta love an October storm in the arvo after a day of hot northerlies.
But wtf is it doing in the middle of March!?!?!
Hail and all.
This is kind of getting ridiculous now. 6 months of spring conditions.
I've ridden 2 waves on a shortboard since Autumn began.
People now seriously writing off autumn and waiting for winter.
Fucking hell.
Autumn really begins on the March 21st Equinox where day & night are equal. But yeah its been a very poor run on the Eastern seaboard in NSW for several dour months now. I escaped to Indo in July/August where it was pumping for weeks on end! I haven't seen anything like a week of good waves since!
Dooms dayers. We only 11 days into autumn
Autumn begins Mar 1 in southern hemisphere.
the pattern is unfavourable. It has been discussed here at length.
the problem: the Tasman sea heatwave is still not resolved.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/05/australias-marine-he...
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/indicator_sst.jsp?c=ssta
That could easily fuck the entire autumn.
things have changed, the new normal is here. Seasons are no longer reliable and seasonal reversals are becoming more prevalent.
20 knot northerlies again today, brown, upwelled water.
That is not March.
Sub heading says Sydney forecast. Unfortunately it’s actually our forecast
Pack ‘er up boys and come on down to gods cuntry
You know it!!
Well, sunny coast has just finished our best run of summer surf that I can remember. Cant complain here.
Sunny coast or just Noosa and it's northern sister?
Been here for 1 summer then.
The SC has been rubbish for 4 months!
Keeping them standards low eh?
Don’t know about you but the surfs been pumping. Surfing nearly every day for months. Sometimes twice a day. The drop in swell is welcome. Got the Mal out yesterday morning.. first time in ages. Good to give the body a rest until the next big swell arrives.
So many negative comments!
Not negative , just reality Lahey.
Tasman sea heatwave has disrupted the normal strength and positioning of the sub-tropical high pressure belt. Thats led to the standard spring pattern of northerly episodes extending right through summer and now into autumn.
Constant onshore winds from the E to NE have been the feature of this summer. That's not negative, thats objective fact.
Thats led to this being the hottest, driest summer on record.
A very few places have done alright out of it. Most have been absolute dog caca.
Consensus around here is worst summer ever.
Of course its not our stereotypical autumn (although I'd be hesitant to judge 11 days into a 90 day period) but as you rightly point out, the seasons seem to have shifted in many parts of the country and world in the past few years. Climate change / natural shift, I'm not sure it matters we know its happening, therefor probably not that suprising things are panning out as 'expected'.
We just come off one of the most solid and surfable swells of the past decade and many necks of the wood have had constant head high+ east trade swell since Boxing day (sans a week here or there).
I'm looking forward to a few beautiful beach break days, hopefully in the not too distant future.
Make like a bird and get the flock out of there
Weather over the next week looks pretty unsettled, hopefully this summer weather pattern might be starting to break down.
weak troughy pattern more remniscent of late spring/early summer short term.
longer term looks interesting but models have struggled to resolve anything long term all summer, mostly I suspect, because the Tasman sea heatwave is fcuking with the inputs.
we'll see.
flat and record breaking heat today.
toxic summer continues.
One two buckle my shoe.
Hungry wahoo are on the chew.
Angling purple water is hard to eschew.
Alternative fun when the waves are too few.
Either that or I’ll drink till I spew.
Food on the table or a hangover I’ll rue ?
Suppose the wild winds of Huey will decide what I’ll do.
Maybe I’ll even do both....wouldn’t you ?
got a nice chunky jew off the stones this morning. no sign of pelagics. water was green.
close to flat.
Coupla small NE peaks on the Goldy. Not much in it though.
Nice work.
So clear here yesterday that it was hard to estimate depth. The water had that weird hypnotic clarity about it where you can see the shafts of sunlight glowing into the depths and the fishing line looks like an anchor rope it’s so obvious.
Took the missus on a coastal tour in the tinny. Had a picnic lunch and pulled up at a nice stretch of beach . Read my book in the sun between swims ( The Great Depression: A diary by Benjamin Roth ) , ate Camembert on crackers and shared a bottle of wine. All very civilised.
That’s what you get for watching “ The Crown “ on Netflix.
Normally we’d be skolling longnecks of homebrew , smashing the empties into the shorebreak, having vicious sand fights and swimming in our acid wash jeans.
that clear water disappeared here with the arrival of Oma and it hasn't been seen since.
I would almost rather 0-1ft clean waves on offer then the onshore slop I have been surfing most days for seemingly 6 months.
I tend to agree with you Riles.
Its been just as bad in Hawaii in their best months. Its been on shore wet
and horrible since the 26th of January. I was there from the 25th Dec to the
24th Jan at had a insane month of surf from perfect 3ft to perfect 20ft with
one onshore wet and miserable day and one perfect weather flat day didn't
really mind because I needed the rest, anyway it was pretty bad before I got
there and damn right disgusting ever since I left so its not only the east coast
that's been rubbish its also the mecca of the surfing world. something is seriously
wrong with the world weather IMO.