South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 21st January)

Best Days: Entire period: good surf most days (athough starting small early Thurs) with a building E'ly swell that should be quite solid on Friday. Generally OK winds too.

Recap: Tuesday saw mainly fresh SE winds and a building local swell across the North Coast, and southern Gold Coast (i.e. D’Bah) but very little action north of the border. Interesting, strong onshore winds overnight Monday across the Mid North Coast went light and variable in some regions early Tuesday morning, offering a window of surfable waves in some areas. Today, surf size has eased back from this source in SE Qld and Northern NSW, offering very small surf with early light winds trending onshore and freshening. A small, slow rise in energy appears to be occurring across open beaches but winds are onshore so conditions aren’t great. However, locations further south (i.e. Mid North Coast) are picking up a decent E’ly swell from the top of a high in the western Tasman Sea.

This week (Jan 22 - 23)

We’ve got some great waves ahead.

The latest model guidance has strengthened the developing low that’s currently meandering the waters S/SW of New Caledonia. And the good news is that it’ll remain in an ideal part of our swell window for the next day or so - far away from the mainland so that it doesn’t influence local winds to any great degree, but close enough so that there’s no major size loss due to swell decay.

Wave heights are expected to build all day Thursday, peaking on Friday and exposed parts of the coast should come in around 4-5ft+.

Due to the position of the fetch (and the resulting E’ly swell direction), we’ll see smaller surf across protected points but there should be a good, even spread of energy at most open locations between the Sunshine Coast and Seal Rocks. For what it's worth, it looks like the North Coast is in the direct firing line, so swell magnets between Byron and Yamba may see bigger bombs at times in the 6ft+ range on Friday. 

Local winds look good too, although not perfect - mainly light to moderate out of the eastern quadrant (tending north-east in the south), and probably variable for a reasonable portion of the mornings. So, aim for an early surf for the best conditions.

This weekend (Jan 24 - 25)

Following a peak in strength later this evening, the Northern Tasman low is expected to both slowly weaken and traverse southwards through the rest of the week. As such, wave heights will slowly fall away from Saturday and through into Sunday. 

We’re not expecting any major patterns in the local synoptic field either, so in general expect early light winds and afternoon sea breezes. We may see a few pockets of trouble (wind wise) during the day but right now it’s looking pretty good on the balance.  I’ll have more on this in Friday’s update.

The low is then expected to re-intensify in the central Tasman Sea on Saturday, and may bring about a renewal of E/NE swell for very late Sunday or early Monday - but I think most regions north of about Forster will probably miss out on this energy. So for now, it’s being discounted as a possible swell source - but I’ll take a closer look at the particulars on Friday.

Next week (Jan 26 onwards)

Aside from Sunday’s possible late pulse in the Far South (which may provide some E’ly swell to the Seal Rocks region on Monday morning), the start of the week will probably fall under the influence of a gusty southerly change expected to push across the Lower Mid North Coast by early Monday. This will bring gusty S’ly winds to about Forster (give or take), and we’ll see a building southerly swell across exposed parts of the North Coast. North of about Forster, winds are expected to be light and variable.

Of far more importance are developments expected to follow shortly behind: there’s good agreement across the models that we’ll see a deepening trough across the western/central Tasman Sea early next week, which could lead to a sizeable local SE swell - although probably accompanied with strong onshore winds in many areas.

Whether this has any influence across SE Qld remains to be seen. However this is a very active pattern and it’s likely that we’ll see a decent seasonal short range SE swell with great waves across the semi-exposed points north of the border, through the middle of the week. Still, its a long time away and things can change between now and then.

So, the short story for the middle of next week is: lots of swell, probably large at times across parts of the East Coast (mainly in the south and central regions), but also wet and windy. And a chance for some good point surf in SE Qld too.

See you all on Friday.