Tropical cyclone Hamish,

[mustkillmulloway]

i just got a vibe

heres hoping, best cyclone producing swell for last 100 years for us poor suffering east coasters

( stay off the coast...track south...blow all the sharks away)

your mission Hamish....if you choose accept

fingers crossed

[marcus]

been away from the net and tv for a few days, where is this swell coming from?

[mustkillmulloway]

it's gone cat 4 overnite

and i got it on a bit string...and pulling this way

[Trev]

it's gone cat 4 overnite

and i got it on a bit string...and pulling this way

Mate, give it a bit of a flick to the east, willya?

[mustkillmulloway]

oh yeah

drop the string and got a pole out pushing it away

it's a mickey hair off a cat 5

the storm cell is bigger than nsw

time fill up the gas bottles and stock up on wax and baked beans

bEt the frocker comes ashore in front me AHHHH whats the odds

COME ON HAMISH....YOU PISS WEAK WANT A BE....I'VE WIPE ME ARSE WITH CYCLONES BIGGER THAN YOU
i dare you hamish....you big hoax...sit off noosa for a week or two...spinning like a demented spiral

BRING IT ON

fingers remain crossed

[steve shearer]

I'd be thinking the next point north of Noosa.

[Donweather]

Righto Steve you now have your wish. We now have a TC in the Coral Sea. However this thing needs to take a sharp turn to the east. This is no joke. This thing has developed into a monstor. Its now a Cat 5 punching out winds close to 300km/hr at the core. If this thing hits the coast we are talking massive destruction. When has a Cat 5 cyclone hit the coast this far south? (Between Gladstone and Bundy). Those communities (and the Sunshine Coast for that matter) are neither designed nor prepared for such destruction and devastation. Expect significant loss of life if she crosses the coast in her current state.

[marcus]

anyone have a link to the qld bouys, please?

[Trev]

anyone have a link to the qld bouys, please?

Marcus, this page has Mooloolaba, Southport and Tweed Heads - scroll down to get to them.
M'ba has been broken for 2 days (not through big swells, though)
http://www.coastwatch.com.au/SurfBeach/ ... hHome-346/

[Donweather]

anyone have a link to the qld bouys, please?

If you're wanting to see all the qld buoys, they are here

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/environmental ... onitoring/

[thermalben]

Mate of mine's been waiting for some cyclone swell at Mackay. Spoke to him an hour ago and he's probably going to break out the waterskis - it's almost flat!

[Trev]

Mate of mine's been waiting for some cyclone swell at Mackay. Spoke to him an hour ago and he's probably going to break out the waterskis - it's almost flat!

Tell him to slip out to the reef

[mustkillmulloway]

. We now have a TC in the Coral Sea. However this thing needs to take a sharp turn to the east. This is no joke. This thing has developed into a monstor. Its now a Cat 5 punching out winds close to 300km/hr at the core. If this thing hits the coast we are talking massive destruction. When has a Cat 5 cyclone hit the coast this far south? (Between Gladstone and Bundy). Those communities (and the Sunshine Coast for that matter) are neither designed nor prepared for such destruction and devastation. Expect significant loss of life if she crosses the coast in her current state.

i really need stop teasing destructive weather events

it's back cat 4...and weakling....but it's a cyclone

they can do anything

i've spoke too it....and suggested it should start tracking towards new zealand right about where they forecast it turn inland

( roughly hervey bay)

i think that would be best for us all

p.s "Lady Elliot Island and Heron Island, both west of Gladstone, were also evacuated on Sunday morning as a precaution to the cyclone, which had recorded winds of up to 280km/h on Saturday night." quote brisbane times

when, exactly did lady elliot and heron island relocate themselfs too WEST of gladstone

[Donweather]

Mate of mine's been waiting for some cyclone swell at Mackay. Spoke to him an hour ago and he's probably going to break out the waterskis - it's almost flat!

You're not serious are you Ben? Flat with buoy readings like this.....

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/projects/wave ... 1&noback=4

[thermalben]

Not sure Don - he seemed as surprised as I was - although I am not sure which part of Mackay he's located at (will see if I can find out). There are a lot of islands in that neck of the woods.

Having never really looked at Mackay with any great interest, I thought I'd quickly scope things out - Mackay appears to have a narrow short range swell window from the E/SE thru' SE, and the wave buoy is located around 35km offshore to the E/NE. This position actually gives it an effective southerly fetch of over 100km - so it'd be plausible to see a decent increase at the bouy from a strong S'ly gradient wind, with no appreciable increase at the coast.

A quick scan of the obs show Mackay's been S'ly since lunchtime and S/SE since dawn (same at Hay Point, just to the S/SE of Mackay), which is obviously not a great direction for windswell prospects in Mackay. Wind speeds have been reasonable here but not outrageous - certainly not strong enough to justify those wave buoy readings. But, the Mackay AWS may not be a useful wind reference for the gradient flow due to local topography (I don't know for sure, having not been there), so we're better off looking further offshore to validate the wind field - and we can see that Middle Percy Island (125km SE of Mackay) has been averaging 40-50kts from the S/SE since lunchtime with gusts to 60kts. In fact, winds were E/SE before lunch, but a little lighter in strength (averaging 25-30kts).

So, this tells me that the energy in the water is primarily S/SE windswell, and that my mate is probably at one of the more sheltered locations in Mackay. There's quite a few islands lying within Mackay's S/SE swell window, which reduces the surf potential at the coast, but surely there'd have to be something on offer?

[thermalben]

Ahh, there ya go - got a message just as I finished that last post. He's on the northern outskirts of Mackay, of which the sheltering there is even more pronounced than in town - where there was apparently a small stormy running this afternoon - 40 surfers and a croc shared the lineup (he just saw it on the news). Apparently there are some OK waves in Mackay on those one or two days every year when conditions come together (!).

[Donweather]

Wave Buoys showing the swell to be more E/SE??

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/projects/wave ... 1&noback=4

Quikscat shows a punchy little E/SE fetch directed up there into Mackay too??

http://manati.orbit.nesdis.noaa.gov/dat ... Bds272.png

[thermalben]

Without being at the surf location, it's hard to make a proper assessment of what's going on, as swell directions at the buoys don't always tell the full story. For example, the Gold Coast's been more east of east/southeast over the weekend (tending E'ly late, even a brief E/NE spike!), while Brisbane was more southeast of east/southeast, with a late S/SE spike. There were two swells in the water this weekend - a south swell and an east swell - which one is being reflected best at the buoys? Why is there no straight south swell in the data? There are complex answers to these questions but the main point is that the directional numbers from the wave buoys have to be used in conjunction with a lot of other data to estimate the likely trends at the beach.

As another example, Sydney's been under the influence of a straight south swell for the last three days - with a decent east swell for the last two - but the buoy data says it's been anywhere from the SE thru' S/SE since Friday lunchtime.

What would be more useful for us? Full spectral buoy data - but this is not available in real time - so we have to make do with what we have.