South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 3rd January)

Best Days: No great days. Maybe Fri AM for some leftover S'ly swell south of the border, with overnight S'ly winds swinging light and variable. Tues/Wed/Thurs: small E/NE swell across open SE Qld beaches. Thurs thru' Sun: new long range E'ly swell, small and inconsistent but nice lines.  

Recap: Small residual swells have padded out most coasts over the last few days with mainly light winds and sea breeze. 

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This week (Jan 4th - 5th)

I’m not expecting much to finish the working week. 

A fresh S’ly change will push up the coast on Thursday morning, and varying degrees of short to mid range S’ly swell will fit in behind, peaking overnight Thursday before easing through Friday.

Unfortunately, the models have weakened the secondary fetch developing further SE in the Tasman Sea, so the expected pulse due later Friday and Saturday has been downgraded. We’ll also see small, longer period S’ly energy fill in underneath (from a low south of Tasmania earlier this week) but no great size is expected from this either.

Thursday afternoon will see the most size, with south facing beaches south of Byron reaching a bumpy 3ft or so. Expect smaller waves at beaches with less southerly exposure. 

North of the border, we’re not going to see much size at all from this generally weak fetch. The SE Qld points will be clean under the southerly flow, but will barely reach 1-1.5ft into Thursday afternoon (smaller earlier). Exposed northern ends should crack the 2ft mark late afternoon but they’ll be blown out. 

Expect a slow easing trend across all coasts into Friday with generally light variable winds in the south, tending light to moderate SE throughout the day north of Ballina. Early morning should have some small peaky waves at exposed beaches (biggest and best south of the border) but I wouldn't rearrange your diary. 

This weekend (Jan 6th - 7th)

Looks like another weekend of small, lacklustre waves. 

The Tasman low mentioned in Monday’s notes - spinning up off New Zealand’s West Coast on Thursday - will briefly develop storm force winds about its core, but it’ll be short lived, small in diameter and a long way from the mainland. I am doubtful we’ll see much, if any energy from this source, unless the models reverse the recent downgrading trend.

As such, most beaches will be looking at small residual waves at exposed beaches both Saturday and Sunday. Winds should be generally light and variable with sea breezes in the north, but south from Yamba we’ll see freshening NE winds Saturday afternoon that’ll become quite gusty into Sunday. So, protected options will be limited. 

On the balance, there are probably better things you could be doing away from the coast this weekend. 

Next week (Jan 8th onwards)

Lots of changes in the outlook for next week.

Northerly winds will maintain poor conditions across most coasts on Monday. They’ll be light in the north but without any new swell on offer there’s nothing to get excited about. 

The expected stalled trough off Southern NSW is now expected to develop a little more slowly, so swell potential has been pushed back to the middle of the week, and will still likely favour the Mid North Coast at best, probably around Wed/Thurs - though I’m not especially confident in the numbers right now. 

A ridge building through the Coral Sea from Sunday will generate a small E/NE swell for the SE Qld open beaches that should slowly build from late Monday or Tuesday onwards, towards a peak around Thursday in the 2-3ft range (upper end of this size across the Sunshine Coast, smaller south from here). Expect smaller waves prior to Thursday.

A very broad, deep Southern Ocean low pressure system, south of Tasmania on Sunday is expected to generate some small S’ly swell spread up the NSW coast during the first half of next week, but once again it’s likely to remain outside of an ideal alignment within our swell window so size potential ain’t terribly high. But it’s a slow moving system and this is well worth keeping an eye on. 

Otherwise, our best swell potential remains a deep, distant mid-latitude low developing south of Tahiti this weekend. It's been pushed back a little in the latest runs, and the enormous travel distance will erode plenty of size from the event but we should see some inconsistent energy sets begin to push through around Thursday next week, holding through Saturday or maybe even Sunday with sets up to 3ft+ at times at exposed beaches, though extremely inconsistent.

More specifics on this event in Friday's update.