SEQ was never a top-flight windsurfing location, but for the last five years or more I have got fewer and fewer sessions and the quality of them has declined. Winds are lighter, patchier and not as frequent.
Is this normal variation? Can we expect a correction? Or is this climate change? Is this happening elswhere?
Think they are crappy everywhere, especially SEQ in the last few years. Hence why I only foil now...
Lowered my expectations for fin 2 years ago 
yes ,even over this way the last 4-5 years have been very light ,and far less days ocean sailing ,NE trade winds ..
mainly in the summer 
,however winter has brought on some good winds ,and my most used sail has been a 8,5 these last
few years ,I even wore one out .Hopefully it is a cycle and good winds will return in the coming years .but yes master Shifu, you are not imagining it ,I say WTF .I seem to drink more beer now .
100% correct the NE seabreeze season has been SFA last 4-5 years especially in strength , often sailed FSW 5.3 and even 4.7's...only pulled that gear out a few times for NE's last few years, its even been crap for kiteing.
As for the normal strong SE trades from post Xmas Null and void, they use to blow almost weekly Jan- April and some big blows in amongst those months ...winter has alway been crap. Also has matched higher than average rainfall years, damnn cloud seeders!
What hasn't changes is BOM's insane inability to forecast wind in SE Qld..Nth Qld they do well , WA is even more accurate SEQ useless and always over exaggerated by 5-10 knts ..which is a lot at the lower end of the scale, they think 8-12 knots is 15-20!
Solution ....NQ in Winter , NSW Spring, WA Summer :) for the price of a carbon foil you can spend weeks in WA and get years worth of SEQ windsurfing in just a few weeks.
I had a nightmare the other night..i woke up in a cold sweat after a dream where i was on a Wingding !.....I haven't slept for days, too afraid to relieve that nightmare :( !
*foot note .....i have thoughts of sailing a LT to keep some sailing fitness and fun..just waiting for a compact version :)
Don't reckon it's as windy either. This time of year we do usually get the doldrums but that aside the patterns are messed up. We don't get pumping east coast lows like we used to through winter. I read something on the bom website a while back where they blamed climate change.
don't reckon northerlies are as strong as they used to be in qld.
surfers are not complaining. Gold and northern nsw has been pumping world class waves for months.
When I first moved up here four years ago , the first summer I was planing four days a week for four months. SE. It hasn't been like that since.
Yep, it's basically sh1t.
mind you, you did miss that one 4.7 session a few weeks back...
The sky has been different the last few years. Different cloud - different light - makes different weather.
I got into windsurfing in 2019. Big kit got me over 132 sessions last season. 95% of them were good planing sessions.
NSW for spring and summer were the vast majority where i live. 37 of those sessions were got by going to FNQ in July, SA in March and QLD in April for 2 week trips.
Last season, our summer nor easters started very early, August 3rd to be exact. By summer, they were done. Hot, gutless and easterly once December hit.
I'm not complaining, but there really doesn't seem to be enough wind.
Maybe the poles did shift. It feels to me right now that we are near or past the solstice. Maybe summer sea breezes will be here soon. Maybe there will be no winter. I don't know, i'm worried what next season will look like.
I just look forward to planing again.
The traditional spring NEers have definitely changed. I haven't had a 20+ kt NE session at Wello for over 3 years. The prevalent direction also seems to have changed from NE to NNE/N. NNE/N does not work at Wello, its too broad and there is a wind shadow behind Green & King Island. I've consequently changed my focus to windfoiling at Queens in these conditions.
The traditional summer SEers can still be consistent as long as there is no rain, however there seems to be more rain associated with this weather stream. Again Queens seems to be more consistent than the southern bay in these conditions.
Autumn and winter have traditionally been the no wind seasons, only relieved by gusty westerlies and the odd SEer
On the plus side the last 2 Burrum Windfests have been the best in the last decade
With old knees, I only like to windsurf in flat water. There have definitely been less opportunities to sail in flat water in SEQ. I foil 90% of the time now in anything from 10 to 25kts in bay swell at Queens. I mainly only fin at LG and Burrum.
Select to expand quoteGestalt said..
Oddly, this weekend sees spring weather patterns to kick off winter!!
And I'm in Vic for the week.
Ill take it for the team.
me too, eying a potentially decent northerly tomorrow (I've got a secret gear stash down here!)
Northerly , 33 % chance of awesome. 33% gusty as painful foook, 33 % fizzer. But when its good , it's good.
Select to expand quoteImax1 said..
Northerly , 33 % chance of awesome. 33% gusty as painful foook, 33 % fizzer. But when its good , it's good.
that's the one!
5th La Nina in a row, unprecedented but i happens, as we have seen the past 5 years. A few years ago, all three weather systems ENSO, SAM and IOP (el nino southern oscillation, southern annular modilation and indian ocean dipole) was in a negative phase, wet everywhere, floods, weak easterly winds. Maybe mother nature is just taking a while to get back to what we think of as normal, those afternoon seabreezes.
Select to expand quoteyakspeed said..
5th La Nina in a row, unprecedented but i happens, as we have seen the past 5 years. A few years ago, all three weather systems ENSO, SAM and IOP (el nino southern oscillation, southern annular modilation and indian ocean dipole) was in a negative phase, wet everywhere, floods, weak easterly winds. Maybe mother nature is just taking a while to get back to what we think of as normal, those afternoon seabreezes.
Fingers crossed
Select to expand quoteGestalt said..
25knots in Byron today. Just keeps blowing in northern nsw
Was there earlier in the day, 14 at best. Not enough to water start launching on foil and got rinsed good and proper in some solid shore break. Went home with my tail between my legs. Should have hung around 
I got into windsurfing in 1978. By about 1983 people were saying "it doesn't blow like it used to". I've been hearing it regularly ever since. Funnily enough as someone who also sails boats, I've been to a few regattas over the past few years where dogs have blown off chains.
Memory is a funny and unreliable thing, and we often get pickier as we get more experienced and perhaps older. In addition I tend to think that we often start to think it's really windy when we start to get overpowered, and if gear improves to the point were we get overpowered less we tend to think it doesn't blow like it used to.
I can also recall many of the pro regattas in the '80s where we had many of the world's best come to Australia and guess what...it didn't blow reliably and everyone sat around saying "it doesn't blow like it used to".
Select to expand quoteMr Keen said..Gestalt said..
25knots in Byron today. Just keeps blowing in northern nsw
Was there earlier in the day, 14 at best. Not enough to water start launching on foil and got rinsed good and proper in some solid shore break. Went home with my tail between my legs. Should have hung aro und
The shore break sux there for sure. it's difficult as wind is dead onshore. But wind does pump. Wind is wrong direction for wave riding too. The beach keeps changing. Am keen to try it in a southerly but it's very offshore and gusty. Wind and waves are the right direction tho
Select to expand quoteChris 249 said..
I got into windsurfing in 1978. By about 1983 people were saying "it doesn't blow like it used to". I've been hearing it regularly ever since. Funnily enough as someone who also sails boats, I've been to a few regattas over the past few years where dogs have blown off chains.
Memory is a funny and unreliable thing, and we often get pickier as we get more experienced and perhaps older. In addition I tend to think that we often start to think it's really windy when we start to get overpowered, and if gear improves to the point were we get overpowered less we tend to think it doesn't blow like it used to.
I can also recall many of the pro regattas in the '80s where we had many of the world's best come to Australia and guess what...it didn't blow reliably and everyone sat around saying "it doesn't blow like it used to".
Agreed we can't rely on memory but guys keep gps logs & pretty good notes of their sessions now. SEQ has been definite years of crap now compared to 10 years ago quite a few guys were logging 160+ sessions, several seq guys havn't done too bad at total distance over the years. My best years were over 220 sessions & not sailing every windy day at that. In last 5 years i've only done 50-60 per year, sure I could've sailed a bit more but even double that is way less than what it was when we had tradional seabreeze patterns.
I've been contemplating moving somewhere windier, though alot of traditionally windy spots seem a bit sketchy now. Foiling whatever in 8-10 knots doesn't do it for me & I can't be bothered sailing gusty southerly crap. Maybe just need to do some more road trips.
Yes. My stats show I'm getting fewer sessions and fewer good days. Frequency and average kilometers sailed go down each year.
Not helped by getting excited at seabreeze graphs only to find they're garbage in reality & when compared to bom forecasts
Select to expand quoteChris 249 said..
I got into windsurfing in 1978. By about 1983 people were saying "it doesn't blow like it used to". I've been hearing it regularly ever since. Funnily enough as someone who also sails boats, I've been to a few regattas over the past few years where dogs have blown off chains.
Memory is a funny and unreliable thing, and we often get pickier as we get more experienced and perhaps older. In addition I tend to think that we often start to think it's really windy when we start to get overpowered, and if gear improves to the point were we get overpowered less we tend to think it doesn't blow like it used to.
I can also recall many of the pro regattas in the '80s where we had many of the world's best come to Australia and guess what...it didn't blow reliably and everyone sat around saying "it doesn't blow like it used to".
Data doesn't lie...and there is a lot of Data around that confirms that at least for this part of the world its more than just a feeling, my lack of use of my 96ltr FSW is evidence alone ....the extra warm water this summer certainly didn't help either, just killed the wind on the water , again data backed, super warm ocean ..its still quite warm now for this time of year..swimming on the weekend , no wetsuit required.
These are average speeds for the last 43 years. It's not good news for the future I am afraid (that's if you think the weather can be accurately modelled in the first place! TBC 
).
** My very first windsurf was late 1983. No wonder it was so much fun back then !!
interesting graph do you know if thats the 3pm average or over day average ? eg it often blows its nuts off when its dark and would make the average look better than the 'useable day time' average.
I suspect a Sunny Coast graph would tell a similar tale ... 20 years ago 4.7m NE days off Castaways in a Hot Dry January were not uncommon, unheard of over the last 5 years ...cant help but suspect its all linked with warmer water temperatures
Funny how perceptions differ. I mainly sail about 40 km down the coast from MobZ, and a few times per summer at his spot or a few kms away, and he said the NE seabreezes were done by December. I thought it remained pretty good so I checked my diary, yep Dec and Jan had plenty of good NEs, including a few 4.5m ones (we usually only get a few of them per season). Not many in Feb, then almost nothing in March, which is a bit earlier than they usually switch off. (I got planing on big wave gear on 23 April but that was a one-off.)
As for SE Qld, I'm basing this only on a week I spent at the Gold Coast in Dec 2022 so for what it's worth (not much), I got a good impression, it felt like the default condition was to blow strong most days from the SE. Being from NSW a SE is the end of a S change but these seemed seabreezes, dying at night then picking up in the middle of the day. There was also one good NE which to a NSWelshman seemed like a "proper" seabreeze direction. The locals gave me the impression the SEs were regular.
