Cyclone to stay offshore, prompting dangerous surf conditions

Cyclone Oma is delivering high winds and damaging surf along the Queensland coast and into NSW, but the storm is expected to remain offshore.

Large surf is observed at Snapper Rocks on the Gold Coast, Thursday, February 21, 2019. Source: AAP

A cyclone watch for Queensland's southern coast has been cancelled but category one Oma is still making its presence felt as it sits offshore.

Forecasters say the weather system will continue to bring high winds and dangerous surf conditions to parts of the Queensland and northern NSW coast in coming days.

Early on Friday, Oma was about 700km east, northeast of Brisbane.

It's slowly moving south and is expected to re-intensify to a category two storm later in the day, before making a u-turn on Saturday and heading north again.

Cyclone Oma will bring high winds and dangerous surf to parts of Queensland and northern NSW. Source: AAP

"Although the centre of Oma is going to stay a fair way off the coast, it is still going to be quite windy," Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jonty Hall has told ABC radio.

"There is still the potential for some damaging wind gusts in the order of 90, 100km/h."

Dangerous winds, surf and abnormally high tides will continue into the weekend from about Fraser Island down to the NSW border.

The same conditions are expected as far south as Yamba in northern NSW.