South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 5th January)

Best Days: No great days. Time to sell the quiver and buy a set of golf clubs. Perhaps some lawn bowls. Hell, even a game of croquet is likely to get the adrenaline rushing more than the ocean over the next week or two. 

Recap: Freshening S’ly winds increased short range S’ly swells across Northern NSW on Thursday with sets around 3ft. However, very little size made its way north of the border. This swell has eased back today and early light offshore winds have swung into a moderate sea breeze. Wave heights have remained tiny in SE Qld. 

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This weekend (Jan 6th - 7th)

It’s not a good look for early January.

We’re starting off with an almost blank canvas on Saturday, due to a lack of regional swells. Winds will be light and variable in the morning, tending NE into the afternoon and becoming moderate to fresh across the Mid North Coast. But wave heights will remain very small - there are simply no new swells inbound, only residual energy from today.

Sunday is an interesting kettle of fish. 

In addition to a small long period S'ly swell pushing across exposed south facing beaches south of Byron (from a system that traversed the waters south of Tasmania earlier this week), we may see a small pulse of SE swell into the afternoon, from a complex low that developed off New Zealand’s West Coast yesterday. 

ASCAT satellite data is now in and whilst one swathe showed a small region of strong SE winds in our swell window (last night), some 12 hours later (this morning) it was all but gone. This very short duration is not a favourable outcome for swell production, despite the strength of the fetch.

The models have 0.3m of SE swell at just over 9 seconds arriving through the afternoon across Northern NSW, but I’m not holding out much hope for any major size or consistency. An optimistic outlook (and hey! I'm a glass-half-full-kinda-guy) would be for occasional 2ft sets at exposed beaches, but even then we’re expecting northerly winds to freshen through the day so the only clean options will be inside protected northern corners. 

Winds will be lighter north from Ballina (though still northerly) however most beaches are unlikely to pick up any size, just some small, stray afternoon sets at exposed northern ends. 

I’ll keep an eye on things throughout the day and will update in the comments below if anything materialises. Otherwise, see you at the Coolangatta Bowls Club around 4pm. 

Next week (Jan 8th onwards)

Another round of model changes for next week. But the short story still remains rather unfavourable for Northern NSW and Southeast Qld surfers. 

Unfortunately, the trade belt is expected to remain too far north in latitude to favour our swell window. As such, the parent high pressure system will be positioned as to drive northerly winds across the coastal margin from Monday thru' Friday (inclusive). Winds will be strongest in the south (i.e. Mid North Coast) but we’ll still see the adverse effects of this pattern across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW too. 

Swell potential is also limited from our other swell windows. Monday should see small levels of SE swell across Northern NSW (a spread of energy originating from gale force S/SW winds developing parallel to New Zealand’s West Coast today and holding through the weekend) though I’ll be surprised if exposed south facing beaches south of Byron pick up much more than an occasional 2ft+ wave. This will then ease through Tuesday. 

SE Qld beaches may see some minor trade swell through the first half of next week, but I doubt it’ll push much higher than 1-2ft on the Sunny Coast, with smaller surf south from here. 

A small front will clip the Southern NSW coast later Tuesday and a moderate S/SW fetch associated with the parent system to the south may generate a brief flush of southerly swell for Northern NSW later Wednesday and Thursday, though no great size is likely. A ridge building through the Central Tasman Sea on Wednesday should build local short range E’ly swell for the Mid North Coast into the afternoon and Thursday though once again, no great size or quality is expected.

Even our long range South Pacific sources have been wiped off the charts, whilst a few fleeting systems in the Tropical South Pacific are too small and too far away to have any real potential for our region.

As such, the wait for good surf continues. Hang in there!