RealSurf Surfers' Forum

steve shearer wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:16 am

it was pretty much board short conditions here yesterday.

water will get colder here once the spring northerlies kick along the ekman transport.

Fascinating:



Upwelling

Coastal upwelling occurs where Ekman transport moves surface waters awayfrom the coast; surface waters are replaced by water that wells up frombelow.

upwelling-ekman-current



Downwelling

Coastal downwelling occurs where Ekman transport moves surface waterstowards the coast; water piles up and sinks below the surface current.

downwelling-ekman-current

Yep the old “shouldnt it be warmer coming from the north?”

“no son, it’s from deeper water”

I’m in some sort rubber to January.

Super fun this morning. Chest to head high, not much crowd, north west winds steady with a bit of spring warmth in it.

And my piece of shit wettie was handling the conditions fine for a change. I always have a problem buying a wettie at this time of year knowing it's about to go in the cupboard until April.

Are you one of those blokes who see’s a person in rubber come September and shakes his head?

Nah, generally steamer May to Aug. September to Oct/Nov is springsuit territory unless it’s a dawnie.

December to Apr is generally boardies and 1 mm vest for sun protection.

My Xcel springie has the furry lining, easy to overheat in it.

Boardies and Rashie today.

My turn to work from home for a while . Got out at 6 to a nice 3-4 foot surf albeit a little on the full side with a few guys out . Also means lunchtime surf time too . Was better than this morning with size still holding . Empty lineup too ! Hope the wind backs off and tomorrows on again .

Thud wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 8:59 am

Yep the old “shouldnt it be warmer coming from the north?”

“no son, it’s from deeper water”

I’m in some sort rubber to January.

Water starts to get cold in August and stays cold till late Jan. More or less three months behind air temps. October to November I would start considering a Springy maybe. Water can still be 16 degrees in December. It's even worse if the air temp is 30 degrees.

Beanpole wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 6:43 pm

Thud wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 8:59 am

Yep the old “shouldnt it be warmer coming from the north?”

“no son, it’s from deeper water”

I’m in some sort rubber to January.

Water starts to get cold in August and stays cold till late Jan. More or less three months behind air temps. October to November I would start considering a Springy maybe. Water can still be 16 degrees in December. It's even worse if the air temp is 30 degrees.

Overreaching there Beans.

Water in Sydney rarely gets to 16 at the depth of winter. Even on days with upwelling, it gets to 17 or so. In December it’s usually 20 or 21.

Full of shit Channels, strong northerlies in December can drop it a fair bit.

Pretty sure May and December is the same temperature

Drailed wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 19, 2020 7:33 pm

Full of shit Channels, strong northerlies in December can drop it a fair bit.

For a day or 2 yes, then the warm water comes back.

Data
https://www.seatemperature.org/australi ... cember.htm

Yep. Too true. The Northerly cold snaps are infrequent

Average temps of course don't necessarily take into account the change to colder temps over recent years. However the chart does show that temps are lower through August/ September and only climb back up towards December. So allowing for a bit of hyperbole the premise rings true.

Aren't the sea temps taken a few Klms out to sea.
I always thought the in shore temps were colder than those recordings.

Yep sea temps on those charts are from several kay's off Sydney. They are commonly different to temps at the beach. See it all the time on super accurate depth sounder's temp guage when out fishing. Really noticeable when a tongue of the EAC arcs in towards Sydney, getting within a few kays of the beach, but rarely does it actually hit the shoreline. When it does it's really obvious when surfing.