South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 16th January)

Best Days: Sat: small waves all weekend but winds will be light in the mornings. Mon/Tues: fun south swell at south facing beaches in Northern NSW (local winds pending). Tues/Wed: building short range trade swell in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. Later Wed onwards: chance for a solid E'ly groundswell.

Recap: Small fun beachies (leftover east swell) across some regions on Thursday as overnight N’ly winds gave way to a morning nor’wester ahead of a southerly afternoon breeze. This same swell persisted into today but a new S’ly groundswell has built along south facing beaches of Northern NSW, with good 3ft+ sets on offer this afternoon. Winds have been reasonable favourable too.

This weekend (Jan 17 - 19)

No major surf expected this weekend.

We’re looking at a small combo of swells, the most broad reaching being some persistent E’ly energy, of which a minor pulse is likely through Saturday. This will originate from a mid-week low north of New Zealand but probably won’t provide much more than a very inconsistent 2ft wave at exposed beaches. In between it's going to be very small indeed.

Today’s S’ly groundswell will fade rapidly during Saturday but the dawn patrol should offer a few 2ft+ waves at exposed south swell magnets. Expect early light winds and moderate afternoon NE sea breezes. 

Sunday doesn’t look much different to Saturday on the surface, except we may see a late pulse of small S’ly groundswell across the Mid North Coast mid-late afternoon. This swell has had a minor downgrade since Wednesday, due to a few small changes in the particulars of a strong frontal progression below Tasmania today and tomorrow. 

Whilst still very strong, the fetch looks like it’ll be a little more zonal (west-east aligned) than Wednesday’s models suggested, which will restrict surf size along the East Coast. Still, we should see an upwards trend throughout the afternoon, and south facing beaches should see late 2ft sets in and amongst the pre-existing small, inconsistent E’ly swell. Anticipate similar winds too: light variable early, afternoon NE sea breezes.

Next week (Jan 20 onwards)

The weekend’s frontal progression is still quite a beauty despite being a little less favourably aligned for Northern NSW (heading to New Zealand? Fiji? Tonga? Samoa? You’re gonna score tidy waves).

Nevertheless, we will see a reasonable level of direct south swell occupying the water through Monday and Tuesday. It’ll pulse irregularly throughout this time, thanks to several swell sources all contributing energy of differing size and periods (meaning the overlapping trains are hard to  distinguish within the model data) but we should see peak wave heights at south facing beaches in the 2-3ft range - but much smaller at remaining beaches. The upper end of this size range is more likely on Tuesday than Monday. And don’t expect any of this south swell to reach SE Qld.

However, local winds are looking a little suss during this time as a coastal trough begins to develop. There’s likely to be periods of variable winds these days but the models are suggesting onshore winds in general. 

Otherwise, the long term focus is is in the Coral Sea where we’re expecting some significant developments throughout the week as a broad Tropical Low develops north-west of New Caledonia and tracks southwards. The timing of this has been pushed back a few days since Wednesday’s model runs and I’d expect a few more changes to be made over the weekend (I’ll update in the comments below). 

Regardless, the most likely scenario at this stage is for a building trade swell in SE Qld and Far Northern NSW from about Tuesday onwards, starting off small but reaching a decent size through the late afternoon and into Wednesday.

Around the same time, the southward tracking Tropical Low is expected to ridge against a broad high pressure system in the Tasman, strengthening a broad easterly fetch within Queensland’s ideal east swell window - just far enough off the coast so that local winds are not too strong, but not too far away so that we don’t lose a lot of size to swell decay (which is a function of a longer travel time). Furthermore, some of the models suggest a slight retrograde back to the coast. 

If this happens - and I’m pretty confident we’ll see something worthwhile materialise this time ‘round - we should be looking at a strong, extended E’ly swell through the second half of the week in the 6ft+ range or bigger across exposed regions. 

Let’s check back on Monday to see how the model guidance is presenting itself. Until then have a great weekend!