Northern NSW and South East Queensland Surf Forecast (Mon 18th Nov)

Northern NSW and South East Queensland Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 18th November)

Best Days: Friday and Saturday morning's in protected spots, Sunday morning

Recap

Small levels of easterly swell kept open beaches topped up with OK waves over the weekend, while a pulse in S/SE swell was seen yesterday across the North Coast.

This morning the S/SE swell is persisting at selected locations offering fun 2-3ft waves under light offshore winds, while the Goldy is tiny and coming in at an inconsistent 1-1.5ft.

This week (Nov 18-22)

Give the surf a miss until later in the week as there's no major swells expected through the coming days besides small levels of easing S/SE and distant E'ly swell.

Friday morning will be the pick with a new E/SE swell expected to arrive across the coast generated by a deepening surface trough in the Tasman Sea over the coming days. This trough will see a series of embedded lows skirting around its southern flank just on the periphery of our swell window. But into Wednesday and Thursday the system will move closer towards New Zealand and more into our swell window (pictured above), generating a fun 2ft+ of E/SE swell for Friday and Saturday.

Winds won't be too good though and just light from the N/NW before fresh N/NE sea breezes kick in.

Keen weather observers may notice a long-range NE groundswell from Wednesday through Friday and this is actually from the North Pacific, the same swell that generated large waves for Hawaii late last week. In all likelihood the Wave Watch Model isn't resolving this well and the swell probably won't make it through the Western Pacific Island chains, but it may be worth keeping an eye out for a trace of this swell later in the week.

This weekend (Nov 23-24)

Also in the mix on Saturday will be a decent NE windswell to a similar size as the E/SE swell generated by an infeed of NE winds extending down to a surface trough moving off the Southern NSW coast Saturday. This swell will ease through Sunday as the trough moves offshore and winds also ease swinging light W/NW creating fun peaky waves.

Longer Term (Nov 25 onwards)

There's nothing too major on the cards for early next week but a new SE swell is possible later next week as the surface trough moving offshore on the weekend possibly re-intensifies in the Tasman Sea. We'll look at this again on Wednesday.