South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 27th January)

There's only one week left to sign up for the P-Pass competition! Sign up to Swellnet’s newsletter and receive the South-east Queensland and Northern NSW Forecaster Notes and latest news sent directly to your inbox. Upon signup you'll also enter the draw to win a surf trip to P-Pass for you and a mate. It doesn’t get much easier so click HERE to sign up now.

Best Days: Small trade swell for SE Qld Mon/Tues/Wed, but with tricky winds. Chance for some small S'ly swell over the weekend at south swell magnets in Northern NSW.  

Recap: A fun S’ly swell pushed up Northern NSW on Thursday though the results were a little patchy. Some south facing beaches pulled in 3ft sets whilst other locations dipped out. And SE Qld saw only small surf from a residual E’ly swell source. Winds were mainly N/NW so back beaches and northern ends were clean. Today the S’ly swell is persisting across Northern NSW though winds have gone around to the south. Surf size is still only small in SE Qld.

Bumpy offerings at Coffs Harbour this morning

This weekend (Jan 28th - 29th)

And one again - there's nothing major expected this weekend. 

Today’s S’ly swell across Northern NSW is expected to ease into Saturday, as is the minor E’ly swell across SE Qld.

The trades have been inactive of late so we’re not expecting much new energy out of the east; a minor flow is developing south of New Caledonia today and we’ll see a small uptick into Sunday (ahead of slightly bigger surf early next week) but I doubt it’ll generate much more than a lazy 2ft across the Sunshine Coast, with smaller surf from the Gold Coast southwards. 

Otherwise, a small long range pulse of S/SE swell from a mid-week intensification around the long-lived polar activity south of New Zealand may generate very inconsistent but surfable waves at south facing beaches south of Byron from Saturday afternoon through Sunday. 

The models have undercalled most of the energy originating from this next of the woods over the last few weeks, and I think we could end up seeing slightly better surf than the model guidance is suggesting (1-2ft). I’d be surprised if it were much more than an occasional 2ft at south friendly beaches but it’ll be worth keeping an eye on the cams. If we do see waves from this source they will however be quite infrequent. Prior to this exect small, inconsistent leftover S'ly swell from today around 1-2ft. 

Winds look light across SE Qld and Far Northern NSW for much of the weekend under a trough pattern but freshening N/NE breeze are expected across the Mid North Coast.

All in all, you’ve probably got better things to do this weekend. 

Next week (Jan 30th onwards)

Freshening trades south of New Caledonia this weekend have been scaled back a touch in the latest model runs but we’re still looking at a building E’ly swell through the first half of next week.

The Sunshine Coast see most of the size (owing to its closer proximity to the swell source) but size will probably max out around 2-3ft+ here from late Monday into Tuesday, before wave heights ease slowly from Wednesday onwards. 

Surf size will be smaller from the Gold Coast south, and overall conditions are looking best on Monday with light variable winds tending light to moderate E’y, ahead of a developing northerly flow through Tuesday (strongest on the Mid North Coast), possibly holding into Wednesday but probably weakening as a weak trough stalls off the Lower Mid North/Hunter region.

Otherwise, we are also looking at the possibility of a secondary trade flow developing north and north-east of New Zealand next week, that should give rise to a small, long lived E'ly swell event beginning later next week and likely persisting for four or five days.

At this stage, the models are also suggesting some kind of tropical development could eventuate somewhere south of Fiji next weekend - in the form of a broad E’ly dip and possible Tropical Low - but this is more than a week away and should be only viewed with low confidence at such a long lead time.

Then again, given the terrible run of summer surf, we can only dream at this point anyway. So go right ahead!

Have a great weekend, see you Monday!