South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 4th January)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Plenty of trade swell all week
• Variable conditions Tues/Wed (S'ly change on the MNC at some point)
• Gusty S/SE winds extending across the region Thurs, holding Fri, easing slowly over the weekend
• FriSat/Sun looking like typical summery-outer-SE-Qld-point-conditions

Recap: E’ly thru’ E/NE swell held 4ft across parts of SE Qld and Northern NSW on Saturday, easing a fraction into Sunday and a fraction more today (still 2-3ft at most coasts). Winds have been variable tending onshore, so it’s been quite workable though far from perfect. The northerly did create a few issues south of Yamba today though.

Monday bumps on the Tweed Coast

Traffic at Caloundra

This week (Jan 5 - 8)

First up: swell. There won’t be any shortage of it this week, thanks to a broad ridge north of New Zealand that should maintain inconsistent 2-3ft E’ly swells across exposed beaches through until about Friday or so (a few bigger sets are possible Tues/Wed). 

We’ll also see some short range S/SE swell Thurs/Fri from a local fetch associated with a building ridge across the coast and into the Coral Sea.

However, winds are the wild card this week. 

A complex trough off Southern NSW will maintain moderate northerlies off the Mid North Coast on Tuesday but we’ll see variable winds elsewhere, with localised NE breezes into the afternoon. Variable conditions will then persist into Wednesday ahead of a modest S’ly change across the Mid North Coast during the day, though locations north of Yamba should remain under 10kts into the afternoon.

So, there’s two days of typical summer beachies across most of SE Qld and Far Northern NSW. It won't be amazing but you'll get your quota relatively easily on a high volume board. 

On Thursday, a more significant S/SE flow will push up the coast as a ridge drives up from the south. A small trough along the coastal margin should enhance wind speeds at the head of the fetch - so we may see initial 30kt+ gusts - though it’ll settle into a broader 20-25kt flow by the afternoon, holding into Friday. 

Note: the timing on the change is not yet clear, and SE Qld may see a delayed arrival (i.e. after lunch) but I’ll firm this up in Wednesday’s outlook.

As such, most of Thursday and all of Friday will be point-only (or protected southern corners). Prior to then, there’ll be options across most beaches, with SE Qld seeing longer windows of opportunity.

S/SE swells trailing Thursday’s change should build south facing beaches south of Byron into a wind-affected 3-5ft range though protected locations will be much smaller, owing to the low period and swell direction. Of course, any delay on the timing of the change will also delay the upwards trend in the swell department (read: SE Qld coasts should aim for Friday; Northern NSW could see action later Thursday).

Despite the low period, the outer SE Qld points often enjoy these short range windy swells, and we should see 2-3ft+ sets on offer (bigger across exposed northern ends) so there should be some fun waves for the last day of the working week. 

As a side note, an impressive polar low sequence below WA today - along the ice shelf - is expected to generate a small but very long period (20 second) southerly swell that’s due to glance the Northern NSW coast later Thursday and Friday. It’s a flukey system (the models aren’t picking this up at all) and set waves will be very inconsistent, but south facing beaches could see 3ft sets from this source. However, the aforementioned S/SE swell will certainly be more dominant.

This weekend (Jan 9 - 10)

Looks like a windy weekend with fresh S/SE breezes Saturday easing Sunday, and a mix of trade swells offering 2-3ft waves across the outer SE Qld points.

Exposed northern ends will be bigger (but much more wind affected) and it’ll likely be a similar situation south the border, though with decreasing wave heights with increasing southerly latitude, as the fetch length becomes shorter. 

There are a few other swell sources for the weekend too.

Friday’s small long period S’ly groundswell will be in the water on Saturday (but also easing) whilst a small low developing within the Tasman trough this week is expected to linger off the SW tip of New Zealand’s South Island on Thursday and Friday. This should provide some small sideband SE swell for the weekend, with 3ft sets across Northern NSW on Saturday, easing Sunday. 

All in all with these winds, options will be quite limited to sheltered spots and outer points this weekend, which won’t be picking up all of the regional swell size. But there'll be fun waves around if you're keen.

Next week (Jan 11 onwards)

Nothing significant standing out in the long term forecast at this stage.