Drought breaker?

[barstardos]

South Curl Curl. Gets good exposure to S swell
North end was at least a foot bigger.
Looking at MHL there is a real spike of 12 second groundswell and 3.5m sig wave height at dawn this morning.
http://www.mhl.nsw.gov.au/htbin/wave_da ... ion=Sydney

In the water this meant every 15 mins a cleanup set then return to more peaky 3+ footers

[BDL77]

Yeah I took 2 of those set waves on the head further up the coast, great to get a good shake around and also managed to snag a few of the bigger ones. Wow I feel almost human again.

[barstardos]

oooooh! Weatherzone likes the look of a Coral Sea TC this weekend.

Things have just got a lot more interesting for the weeks ahead.

[Donweather]

Looking at MHL there is a real spike of 12 second groundswell and 3.5m sig wave height at dawn this morning.
http://www.mhl.nsw.gov.au/htbin/wave_da ... ion=Sydney

Please don't take this question the wrong way as I'm not trying to dispute your in water observations this morning at all, but are those wave buoy readings at dawn actually real......ie is it possible to have Tsig greater than Tp1?

[Donweather]

oooooh! Weatherzone likes the look of a Coral Sea TC this weekend.

Things have just got a lot more interesting for the weeks ahead.

Are you referring to it's progging of four tropical systems across the top end and Tropical South Pacific early-mid next week.....surely that is a figment of GFS's imagination!!!

[steve shearer]

And I do have to agree with Steve on how awesome the banks are primed at the moment, but seriously Steve, surely we're gonna get some decent surf between now and Autumn that will alter those banks??

The Nino summer of 05/06 was broken by Cyclone Wati late March. Up to that point there had been small surf.
Wati delivered BIG-TIME and stayed far enough away to not fcuk the banks.
That was followed by a MONSTER south groundswell in April .
Banks stayed epic all autumn/winter.

Summer of 06/07 was mostly small.
A tiny May(07) saw the June rebound with 7(count 'em) ECL's including the Pasha Bulker swell.
A most truly epic Winter.

All delivered on the back of a summer with no major storm swells.



Based on nothing more scientific than intuition(and obsessive pouring over the models) I'm liking more and more the current and future set-up.
Would not be surprised to see a double jeopardy style set-up (anyone remember Anne and Agi?).....
Boy there's some convection flaring up in the Solomons right now.

Sure you don't wanna cancel that trip Don?


Compare with the last 2 (nina-type) summers. Banks got washed out both times and never really recovered.

This is the best I've seen 'em since '07.

[Donweather]

Based on nothing more scientific than intuition(and obsessive pouring over the models) I'm liking more and more the current and future set-up.
Would not be surprised to see a double jeopardy style set-up (anyone remember Anne and Agi?).....
Boy there's some convection flaring up in the Solomons right now.

Sure you don't wanna cancel that trip Don?

So you're favouring GFS somewhat then Steve? What's your thoughts on the potential of the cyclone over the Solomons over the next 5-7 days or so? EC has been very consistent and not really progging anything of significance for sometime in it's runs, whilst GFS has been showing the Solomons tropical low bearing straight down on FNQ into a pretty sizey system. Now it's done a slight change to that with 4 tropical systems progged across the top end in a week or so's time.

I can tell ya now I'll be mighty pissed if Huey delivers on these cyclones up that way when we're there. For the last six weeks it's been pumping and clean as all day. Fecking typical when I go it'll be 40knt onshore winds and shit!!!!

[Donweather]

Feck me there's some serious moisture going down up there.

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemil ... mscol.html

[mical]

Damn, I was hoping this would be a Butts photo spread

Butts, where are you buddy? I/we miss your amazing images.

Seconded.

[SAsurfa]

Well Sydney is coming in a lot bigger then expected today

Look at the buoy climb

I surfed south curly again and it was a solid 5-6ft with some 8ft bombs down the beach, one of which I copped on the head

Wind speeds around the low didn't even look to be that great

The models must have underestimated the strength of the low or something :?

[Quangers]

[quote="SAsurfa"]Well Sydney is coming in a lot bigger then expected today

Look at the buoy climb

FMD!! I usually just check the Batemans Bay or Eden buoy and I thought they were big - Sydney is looking very solid

Geez, I hope this hangs around for a little while longer - at least until tomoz... (looking after the kids today )

[Donweather]

Well Sydney is coming in a lot bigger then expected today

Look at the buoy climb

The models must have underestimated the strength of the low or something :?

I find this a common occurence with WW3 and tight compact fetches around lows. It struggles to pick up the core strength and even the duration of these (perhaps due to the coarseness of the resolution of the models??) and as such, particularly for you guys down there being a lot closer to the fetch, swell heights hitting the shoreline can be underestimated by the wave models. But yes, the Sydney buoy has exceeded all expectations.

Biggest question now is, how much of this will refract into locations north of Byron. Swell direction is extremely S'ly and hence we typically get hoaxed big time with these big bomb swells that hit down south.

[barstardos]

Well it does appear that the swell drought is broken, not only are we getting more swell than expected today but both GFS and EC are forecasting multiple swells from multiple directions in the weeks ahead.
Unfortunately they dont agree on what when and how these systems will happen.
What is aparrent is that swell windows are looking good.
1.Another deep low in southern Tasman on saturday (GFS)
2. Coral sea cyclone on the weekend - but not in our swell window (both GFS and EC)
3. NE windswell mon/tue (GFS)
4. ESE swell from low of North Island Wed/thu (GFS)
5. Another TC near new caledonia Wed (GFS & EC)

Not all of these things are going to happen but there is more swell potential in the next week than there has been in last 3 months

[Kunji]

Not all of these things are going to happen but there is more swell potential in the next week than there has been in last 3 months

Thats the best news ive heard this year! I just happen to have next week off work.

[Donweather]

LOL......GFS and EC (00z runs) have each done a complete about face with regards to the Coral Sea low. GFS has now aligned with the EC 12z run, whilst EC has now aligned with the GFS 12z run.

It's like they must have swapped chips in their main frames!!!

[steve shearer]

Hilarious.
EC now has a monster cyclone hovering off the QLD coast while GFS has dropped the idea of the Solomons system completely.

NOGAPS has stayed true to the vision splendid.

[Donweather]

NOGAPS has stayed true to the vision splendid.

Yes I read a discussion from a wise old weather guru today that NOGAPS has been the most consistent and reliable and predictable with it's forecasts to date for the Coral Sea low.

Feck I hope for my sake that the latest EC model DOESN'T come to fruition. Would feck up my surfari big time!!!

[Donweather]

Well it looks as though the Sydney bomb swell was a well aligned fetch making a bee line straight for Sydney, cause by my calcs, it (the spike in the Sydney wave buoy this morning) should have arrived at Coffs buoy late this afternoon.

Latest Coffs buoy is showing Jack.