South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 29th December)

Best Days: Sun: chance for a few small peaky waves on the Gold and Tweed Coasts. Mon: small early south swell across Northern NSW's south swel magnets. Mon/Tues: small, flukey long range E/SE swell across SE Qld. Tues/Thurs/Fri: small, flukey south swells at magnets south of Byron. 

Recap: Small E/SE swells originating from a ridge atop a Tasman high has maintain peaky 1-2ft surf across SE Qld, with marginally bigger surf in Northern NSW, especially Thursday where we were still seeing easing size from an earlier SE swell that peaked Wednesday. Winds have been mainly light with OK conditions. 

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This weekend (Dec 30 - 31)

Northerly winds will continue to create problems across all coasts on Saturday. With no new swell on offer it’s a moot point anyway.

Sunday has some minor potential for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. An approaching trough from the south will strengthen N’ly winds off the Southern Qld coast Saturday night, generating some peaky N’ly swell for the Gold and Tweed Coasts around 2ft. It’ll be smaller on the Sunny Coast due to the shorter fetch length, and south from Byron the coastal alignment won’t favour much size. Don't get your hopes up at all, but some reliable swell magnets may have a few little options in the morning. 

Additionally, the leading edge of a small, extremely distant E/SE swell is expected to start appearing throughout the day, generated by a deep mid-latitude low well south of Tahiti earlier this week. The swell is not expected to peak until Monday or Tuesday though and it’s a flukey event so don’t get your hopes up.

The best aspect of Sunday is the surface trough, which will bring a cool southerly change to the Mid North Coast (bumping up exposed beaches), but we’ll see a reasonable period of light variable or offshore winds north from Ballina early morning. Southerlies will probably reach the border by late morning or lunchtime though it’s not expected to penetrate much further north than that, and we may see variable condition across the Sunny Coast (particularly the northern end) into the afternoon.

Otherwise, south facing beaches south of Byron (mainly the Mid North Coast) will also see a small increase in new S’ly swell throughout the day, being a mix of short range energy from the change itself plus some slightly better mid-range swell spreading back from a W/SW fetch exiting eastern Bass Strait later Saturday. However, model guidance suggests this energy will mainly push through overnight so don’t get your hopes up. And, south facing beaches south from Byron will generally see some form of southerly breeze too, which will bump up the surf. 

Next week (Jan 1st onwards)

Sunday’s late arrival of south swell should hold across Northern NSW’s south facing beaches (south of Byron) into Monday morning before easing throughout the day. Expect 2-3ft sets at swell magnets, and not much elsewhere. 

Otherwise, the aforementioned low confidence distant E/SE groundswell is expected to slowly mature through Monday and Tuesday. The Sunshine Coast has the greatest chance seeing some size from this source - maybe some 2ft+ sets - with smaller surf to the south, and very little chance of anywhere south of Ballina seeing any energy. There could be 20+ minutes between waves so don’t make any concrete plans around this event.

Light variable winds are expected through most of next week, so conditions are looking pretty good. However, there are not many other swell sources on offer. 

A small long period S’ly swell will glance the coast later Monday (Mid North Coast) and Tuesday (remainder of Northern NSW coast), originating from the parent low to the weekend’s change - poorly aligned, but quite broad and strong in the Southern Ocean. The models aren’t picking up this swell at all, but (as mentioned earlier this week), we have seen quite a few flukey south swell slip beneath the radar. 

These kinds of low confidence south swells will often favour just a handful of reliable south swell magnets, so keep your expectations low. But the odd 2-3ft set can’t be ruled out. 

Another poorly aligned but very large Southern Ocean low south of Tasmania around Monday will generate some south swell thats expected to glance the coast later Thursday and Friday. At this stage it’s likely to produce a similar result as per the Mon/Tues flukey south swell - low confidence and only favouring a handful of south swell magnets at best. 

Otherwise, the rest of the forecast period looks very small across the East Coast with no signs of major activity across any of our swell windows. 

There’s a few sources of energy worth keeping an eye on in the long term - probably the most likely system to bear fruit is a slowly deepening trough well SE of Fiji (but still inside our swell window) from Monday onwards that will probably become a source of small, distant but long-lived E'ly swell from the end of next week onwards, possibly for a week or so as the synoptic pattern looks like it’ll be very slow moving. 

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!