South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 25th January)

Best Days: Tues/Wed/Thurs AM - lots of E'ly swell with good winds in the mornings. Make the most of it as we have a spell of funky surf conditions ahead with N'ly winds and no major groundswell sources. 

Recap: We’ve got plenty of footage in the previous forecast notes comments, and various articles and videos posted to the homepage, but in short - looks like this event generally came in pretty close to expectations. If anything, it built a little more quickly than expected on Saturday (was pushing 3-5ft Saturday afternoon, against a forecast of 3-4ft) and maintained this size through Sunday as well as most of today too. There have been scattered reports of 6ft+ bombs but the best feature of this swell was its incredible power and strength - something that isn’t adequately recorded by generic wave buoy data. The lines sweeping in from the east (actually, east/northeast from my vantage point) was a sight to behold, even though by global - or even national - standards, it certainly wasn’t an especially large swell event. Although wave heights have maintained a similar size for the last three days - Sunday being a fraction bigger overall - Sunday was significantly stronger than surrounding days. This is a topic worthy of a detailed hindcast analysis, which I’ll endeavour to do at some stage if I can free up some time (!). 

This week (Jan 26th - 29th)

Tropical Cyclone Victor slowly weakened over the weekend, tracking slowly west then south below Tonga. The energy we saw in the surf zone over the weekend was generated during the early to middle part of last week - whilst it was at Catgory 3 level - so now we’re seeing the tail end of this initial episode, generated late last week as Victor started to ease.

However there’s plenty more to come.

Tuesday and early Wednesday will generally see a slow decline in surf size and strength (originating from Victor's easing weekend trend), but it’s still likely to be above average for many locations with light morning winds and moderate afternoon sea breezes.

The same theme of inconsistency will continue to ring true across all coasts, but if you’re patient many exposed coasts should still see set waves around 3-4ft+ early Tuesday morning before size really to fall away into the afternoon. Although this isn’t too different from the weekend’s size estimates, it’s worth pointing out that it’ll probably be closer to the bottom end of the forecast size range for the most part, and surf size will be a fraction smaller across most Gold and Sunshine Coast outer points, and other sheltered locations. But with favourably light winds it’ll be well worth capitalising on a great day of surf for Australia Day.

A further easing trend is expected into Wednesday morning, but the middle of the day or early afternoon will herald the arrival of a fresh round of E/SE swell from ex-TC Victor, generated yesterday afternoon and today. The former cyclone re-intensified just north-east of New Zealand during this time, and core winds have been upwards of 50kts again - though unfortunately the strongest fetch is aimed away from our coasts. Because of this re-alignment, I have pulled back my estimations from Friday's notes but nevertheless it's looking like some more great waves on the way.

And once again this pulse of swell will be very inconsistent owing to the large travel distance. 

Surf size should build through Wednesday afternoon and hold through Thursday, with infrequent 4-5ft sets at open beaches in Northern NSW, and more like 3-5ft across SE Qld (a little smaller as you run down the various points, but the upper end of this size range across the open beach breaks). Keep in mind that there will be lengthy periods of smaller surf though; I'm certainly not expecting this event to reach the lofty standards set over the weekend.

Wednesday’s airstream looks generally OK too - a weak ridge pushing across the coast may drive moderate E/SE winds at times, but I don’t think they’ll be too strong and it should be variable in the morning. However Thursday is at risk of freshening NE winds through the afternoon (following a period of light variable winds early morning). So aim for an early paddle for the best waves. 

Thursday’s swell will then ease steadily through Friday (2-3ft+ early morning across Northern NSW, a little smaller in SE Qld) and by the afternoon it’s likely to be a foot smaller, and a lot weaker and even less consistent. We are still at risk of a northerly flow through Friday but I’m hopeful that a broad coastal trough across NSW at this time will push offshore, allowing winds to veer NW in some regions, maybe even trending variable. Probably the least likely area of this happening is the SE Qld region, but I’ll reassess on Wednesday.

This weekend (Jan 30th - 31st)

This broad coastal trough looks very tricky for our long term surf prospects. There are no significant swell generated systems expected in any of our usual swell windows, so right now the only options look to be northerly windswell. It’s too early to pin down specifics - due to the close source of the surf, and the likelihood that the models will change a lot over the coming days - so let’s reassess on Wednesday. But for now, you should absolutely make the most of the next few days as it looks like we’ve got a patchy period of surf ahead across all coasts. 

Next week (Feb 1st onwards)

At some stage this coastal trough will push into the Tasman - probably later in the weekend - and this may provide some ingredients to generate a Tasman Low early next week. But this is a very long time away so let’s see how the next few days pan out in model-land.