South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 22nd January)

Best Days: Plenty of great surf from Thursday onwards as a Coral Sea low sends NE trnding E/NE and E'ly swells across our region. Could become sizeable over the weekend and early next week. 

Recap: The weekend delivered great waves, though mainly south the border. SE swells eased slowly across Northern NSW from 3-4ft to 2-3ft on Saturday, and further from 2-3ft Sunday. North of the border, exposed northern ends saw 2ft+ sets Saturday, easing to 1-2ft Sunday. The outer points and remaining beaches were a little smaller. Wave heights levelled out this morning around 2ft south of Byron, and 1-1.5ft across SE Qld. Winds have been out of the southern quadrant, resulting in clean conditions across many locations and also clear, warm waters.  

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl.

This week (Jan 23rd - 26th)

Lots to look forward to over the coming week or two (or three) though the next few days will remain very small with minor residual energy across the coast.

A small long period south swell may glance exposed parts of Northern NSW on Tuesday afternoon (followed by a second, smaller south swell Thursday and a third pulse Friday) but set waves will be very inconsistent and there won’t be much size on offer. 

Interestingly, model guidance has 0.4m @ 17 seconds Tuesday lunchtime (Coffs Harbour) which suggests some decent sets around the 2-3ft mark, but the source of this energy is not particularly reliable so I’d be hesitant to expect much more than a stray 2ft wave every fifteen or twenty minutes. 


Elsewhere, Tuesday and Wednesday will see small peaky leftovers similar to today. Winds should be generally light out of the E/NE. 

While this is happening, a deepening tropical low will be meandering in the Coral Sea, ridging up against a Tasman high and strengthening E’ly winds about its southern flank. This system will initially develop in SE Qld’s somewhat infrequent NE swell window, though this initial activity won’t be as strong as later developments in our east swell window. 

Eventually, we’ll see a broad ridge develop through the Northern Tasman Sea by the weekend with a chance that the tropical low may remain active along its northern perimeter, enhancing the back half of the fetch. This is a very important factor for the long term outlook.

But back to this weeks developments: this means that SE Qld will see an increase in NE swell from Thursday ahead of a bigger, broader round of swell from Friday onwards as the swell direction slowly clocks E/NE (Fri/Sat) then E’ly (into Sunday).

Thursday and Friday probably won’t see too much local wind south from the Gold Coast, though it’ll be mainly out of the east so the points will offer the best waves. The Sunshine Coast will be closer to the developing system and models have around 20kts E/SE later Thursday and Friday which may restrict options. However, this close proximity to the swell source will also result in more size.

So, how big will it be? 

Well, let’s qualify things first up by stating that the further north you are, the larger the surf will be, and the earlier it will kick in.

Thursday should see 2-3ft surf building to 3-4ft across the Sunny Coast, but it’ll be smaller across the Gold and Tweed Coasts (building to 3ft). On Friday, easterly winds will slowly ratchet up and wave heights should build by another foot or two, which means point-only. So, across the open beaches we can expect 4-5ft+ surf at the Sunshine Coast, and 3-5ft at the Gold/Tweed Coasts by the end of the day.

South from Ballina or Yamba, we really won’t see a notable increase until the weekend. So, expect small surf across the Mid North Coast on Thursday, increasing to 2-3ft Friday with some small trade swell. Between here and Byron, we’ll see larger waves with increasing northerly latitude but ultimately it’ll be smaller than what’s expected in SE Qld. Winds shouldn’t be too much of an issue across Northern NSW (if anything, north from Ballina/Byron on Friday may be a slight problem, but it'll be OK elsewhere) so there’ll be fun beachies around the traps - banks pending, that is.

This weekend (Jan 27th - 28th)

The southward-tracking tropical low will anchor a broad ridge through the Northern Tasman Sea from Friday onwards, and a long E’ly fetch will generate excellent E’ly swells that’ll persist for quite some time. 

In fact it’s looking like there’ll be too much size for the open beaches for most coasts, which means you’ll have to work around the points and other sheltered spots. Winds will be fresh and gusty from the SE quadrant across all coasts this weekend too. 

SE Qld and Far Northern NSW look to be the biggest beneficiary north days with solid 4-5ft+ surf on Saturday building to 5-6ft+ on Sunday. Surf size will be slightly smaller as you head south from Ballina but not by any major degree. 

Let’s take a closer look over the coming days to see if there are any significant changes. But, this pattern has been on the cards for a little while now so confidence is certainly quite healthy at this early stage. 

Next week (Jan 29th onwards)

Depending on how the embedded tropical low develops over the weekend, we could be looking at a slightly bigger pulse early next week before wave heights level out through the middle part of next week. 

Model guidance is estimating some pretty sizeable figures for Monday (in and around the 6-8ft mark at exposed beaches) which corresponds with the deepening low at the back of the fetch, working on a fully developed sea state thanks to the stationary ridge of the previous few days. However the size of this swell and the accompanying gusty S/SE winds will confine the only rideable options to a handful of sheltered points.

In fact, the longer term model guidance suggests there’s a whole lotta tropical activity to bear down through the Coral Sea for the next few weeks, all of which points to two or three weeks of fluctuating trade swell from the east and northeast. 

Ain’t it good to have our summer trade swells back on the horizon! We’ve missed ya, big fella.