Northern NSW and South East Queensland Surf Forecast (Mon 13th Jan)

Northern NSW and South East Queensland Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 13th January)

Best Days: Every day over the coming period

Recap

The weekend provided fun clean waves across both regions with a slow drop in E/SE swell under light variable winds each morning.

Today the swell was persisting at 2ft across SE Qld with the odd bigger set, while the North Coast was seeing 2ft waves around Ballina, with smaller surf further south.

This week (Jan 14 -19)

A slow increase in trade-swell will be seen this week as a weak but broad easterly ridge starts to strengthen in the Coral Sea (pictured right).

This will kick up medium levels of E'ly trade-swell for SE Qld that looks to peak through Thursday and Friday this week, while the North Coast and further south will see smaller waves due to the fetch being aimed more into Qld.

Winds will be generally from the E/SE, but should be lighter and more S'ly each morning across the Goldy, with more variable winds on the North Coast.

This weekend onwards (Jan 20 onwards)

A weak tropical cyclone (likely named Edna) is forecast to form in the Vanuatu region later this week and drift south into the trade-flow.

As the cyclone drifts south the easterly ridge will strengthen (pictured right) and generate some better E'ly groundswell for our region into next week.

To what size and when is still a little unsure due to some model divergence, but we're probably looking at a peak through Monday some time. Check back here on Wednesday for the latest on this and keep an eye on the model forecasts and WAMs.