South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 24th January)

Best Days: Most days will see good surf in SE Qld, it'll be small initially in Northern NSW though. Sizeable but windy next week.

Recap: Small residual easterly swells have prevailed at most beaches for the last two days, along with a minor flush of S’ly groundswell that raced up the Northern NSW coast late Tuesday and provided inconsistent but clean 2ft+ sets to a handful of exposed south swell magnets this morning before the NE breeze kicked in. 

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

This week (Jan 25th - 26th)

Mainly light variable winds tending light to moderate E/NE are expected to finish the working week, so there’ll be clean options across most open beaches both mornings. 

As for surf, today’s small S’ly swell will be gone by tomorrow. A couple of even smaller long period S’ly swells may appear sporadically over the coming days, but they’ve been sourced from poorly aligned Southern Ocean fronts so they won’t generate much size - just a foot or two at reliable south swell magnets in Northern NSW at best.

Of much more interest to us - mainly those surfers in SE Qld - is a building NE tending E/NE swell from Thursday (more likely the afternoon) into Friday. This is being generated by a freshening E’ly fetch across the southern flank of a broad trough in the Coral Sea. 

Wave heights will be largest with increasing northerly latitude, which means the Sunshine Coast will see the biggest surf - building to 2-3ft at open beaches on Thursday afternoon, and then potentially 3ft to maybe 4ft throughout Friday. 

However, we’ll see smaller surf south from here, building to 2ft+ Thursday afternoon across the Gold and Tweed Coasts, then 2-3ft+ Friday, with wave heights becoming slowly smaller as you track south from Byron (and with a later arrival time - more likely Friday morning in Northern NSW, possibly the afternoon across the Mid North Coast. 

This weekend (Jan 27th - 28th)

Ahh, complex weather charts. Gotta love ‘em. 

We’ve seen some pretty dramatic variations in model runs over the last few days. However the general premise remains strong for an extended run of quality surf building from this weekend onwards. 

The weekend will see increasing trade swell from a broadening ridge across the Northern Tasman Sea, through into the Lower Coral Sea. The models have pulled back the strength of this fetch in the last few runs, and also removed a tropical low at the back of the fetch, so the projected surf size is smaller than discused Monday (though, an increase can't be ruled out for Friday's notes.. these here are dynamic days). 

Again, we’ll see the most size across SE Qld beaches and Far Northern NSW, with smaller surf as you head south from Byron Bay. Saturday morning should see 3-4ft surf across the open beaches north of the border (smaller across the points) with a gradual increase to 4-5ft by Sunday afternoon. Similar quality surf is expected south of the border despite the smaller size. 

As for local conditions, winds will gradually freshen from the E/SE though there’ll be periods of lighter S’ly winds early morning. We’ll see the most wind strength across the Sunny Coast (which has less chance of seeing the early light S’ly) but conversely, there won’t be a lot of local wind as you head south from Byron Bay, which means a longer morning window of favourably light S, maybe even SW winds. A nice upside despite the smaaller wave heights.

Next week (Jan 29th onwards)

The forecast models are (again) moving around a LOT for next week.

At the moment we’ve got a wide variety of swell sources from the east, south and north-east into the long term period though it’s likely that things will change the moment after I upload these notes. As such, I’ll provide a broad overview but I’m reluctant to commit to anything specific at the moment. 

First up - a series of tropical lows pulling off the monsoon trough across the tropical South Pacific/Coral Sea region will interact with the Tasman ridge early next week, setting up strong E’ly fetches in the Northern Tasman Sea. Due to the considerable variability between model runs, it’s hard to be confident on the likely size range but it’s quite likely we’ll see the background trade swell of 3-5ft lift to 4-6ft across some coasts through the middle of the week - though it’s hard to know precisely where (some models favour southern NSW, others the East Coast more broadly). This looks to be centered around Wednesday, give or take. 

Further small to moderate E/NE swell is likely later in the week and into next weekend, though this will be dependent on how the monsoon trough behaves. It's a long time away in forecast land.

Around the same time, a cold front is expected to enter the SW Tasman Sea early next week, and interact with the broader trough across the northern Tasman Sea, setting up a strong southerly fetch that’ll generate large S/SE swells building Wednesday into Thursday. Northern NSW could see 5-6ft+ sets at south swell magnets during this time, but - unlikely last week - the short fetch duration means we’ll see much smaller surf north of the border. Again, we need more time to iron out the specifics. 

The only downside is that the accompanying southerly winds - fresh to strong at times - will render many beaches quite bumpy as this south swell reaches a peak (concurrently with, or just after the E’ly swell), so you’ll have to look towards the protected points for the best conditions. 

As for the longer term outlook, there’s a reasonable indication that we'll see continuing activity across a wide variety of swell windows over the next couple of weeks, which is very promising. More importantly, I can’t see there being an extended return to northerlies in the foreseeable future. 

See you Friday.