Northern NSW and South East Queensland Surf Forecast (Wed 29th Jan)

Northern NSW and South East Queensland Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 29th January)

Best Days: Every day in protected spots out of the wind

Recap

Medium to large levels of trade-swell continued across both regions yesterday and today with poor winds for open beaches across the Sunny, Gold and upper North Coasts, but more favourable winds further south.

This week and weekend (Jan 30 – Feb 1)

The strong easterly ridge and deepening tropical low off the Northern Qld Coast (that may be named Dylan Friday morning) linked to our current swell episode is slowly weakening and will continue over the coming days.

This will result in a very slow drop in size across open beaches into the weekend. Winds should improve at a similar rate, remaining average over the next couple of days but improving into the weekend.

Next week onwards (Feb 3 onwards)

While the trade-flow weakens into the end of this week, a tropical low is expected to drift south from Fiji and make an extra-tropical transition just north-east of New Zealand on Friday. Unfortunately this low will drift too quickly south-east resulting in not much above 2-3ft of inconsistent E'ly groundswell across open beaches Monday afternoon and early Tuesday.

Of greater importance is the re-establishment of a strong easterly ridge in the Coral Sea early next week (pictured right), with building levels of E/SE trade-swell due again during the week.

We may see a much more favourable tropical low deepening in this trade-flow mid-week but we'll review this Friday.