where have all you predictors gone

[Nick Carroll]

It is oldman. What a shame the Americans don't get to use it. "Fallial" just isn't the same.

Syd Report Card: C+

There's more sand on the beaches right now than I can recall since April 2007 .. and we all know what happened next.

There's my optimistic moment of the year for yas.

[oldman]

There's a story, possibly apocryphal, that an american writer of some repute, can't remember his name (Hemingway?) wanted americans to start calling autumn autumn instead of fall,

so that he could use the adjective autumnal. You've heard that I bet NC.

[Donweather]

So how's your optimism holding up fellas.

I have to agree with Steve on this one Nick. Whilst we haven't had massive swell from the east, there's certainly been no shortage of fun waves in the 3-4ft+ class and some very clean and glassy mornings....and up until the last few weeks, the banks at certain locations have been fecking sensational on the beachies......almost the best I've seen them in years.

[steve shearer]

There's more sand on the beaches right now than I can recall since April 2007 .. and we all know what happened next.

Was just thinking that this morning, surfing a head high lumpy Pointbreak with a waist deep sandbar strung out along it's length straight as a fcuking die.
I've had deja vu moments Re: 2007 too.

That year featured a warm April/May and unbelievable sand-build-ups.
Just looked at the temp data for Ballina .
So far our April mins have been a whopping 2.5 degree above the April av.
Water is still bath-tub warm.

We don't want a large swell from here on in.
Any groomed swells and we are gunna see a tube-fest of Lopezian proportions.

[oldman]

So far our April mins have been a whopping 2.5 degree above the April av.
Water is still bath-tub warm.

Been the warmest April I can remember. Such good weather, and to date we have hardly had a cool night even. Water temp just sweet.

Still waiting for the change of season I thought I could smell about 5 weeks ago??

[Donweather]

Ha, how funny. I was only just talking about water temps to my mate on the way back from my surf yesterday. We've certainly seen the cooler nights up here oldman. No question the season's have changed for us up here. Water temps of 25-26 deg and overnight land temps of 17-19 deg can only mean one damn good thing!!!! Autumn is such the best time for a surfer in SE QLd....no question about that.

Speaking of water temps, can anyone point me in the direction of where I can find out what the realtime nearshore water temps around the Coffs area are? I can find the offshore ones from the SST charts of Australia, but the resolution of these is rather poor and accuracy for nearshore water temps calcs is rather dubious.

Our SE Qld wave rider buoys also measure water temps. Do you guys have something similar down there around Coffs?

[oldman]

Trevg mentioned on the other topic that he had been surfing for the last 8 days.

Just took a look at the charts for the first time in a week and found an onion ring forming in the Tasman and sticking around for a while before being replaced by another later, which sort of means a lot of days with waves ahead of us, even if winds aren't perfect.

Anyone been getting excited, or is even staying schtum about this? (just talking about here, not other sites)

[alakaboo]

Speaking of water temps, can anyone point me in the direction of where I can find out what the realtime nearshore water temps around the Coffs area are? I can find the offshore ones from the SST charts of Australia, but the resolution of these is rather poor and accuracy for nearshore water temps calcs is rather dubious.
Our SE Qld wave rider buoys also measure water temps. Do you guys have something similar down there around Coffs?

Hey DonW
AFAIK only the newer directional ones in NSW have water temp, hence only batemans, sydney and byron. All are linked here:
http://mhl.nsw.gov.au/www/real_quick.htmlx
If you want forecasting info, try here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/fore ... forecast=1
Shows it's fricken warm at the moment, and Coffs would have been one of the warmest places around recently:

SST and currents.jpg (57.35 KiB) Viewed 4982 times

[alakaboo]

obviously, another good reason for the NSW buoys to be upgraded!

[Trev]

Speaking of water temps, can anyone point me in the direction of where I can find out what the realtime nearshore water temps around the Coffs area are? I can find the offshore ones from the SST charts of Australia, but the resolution of these is rather poor and accuracy for nearshore water temps calcs is rather dubious.

Our SE Qld wave rider buoys also measure water temps. Do you guys have something similar down there around Coffs?

Don, I use this page of Coastwatch. Scroll down to the end of the page. Might be some help.

http://www.coastwatch.com.au/SurfBeach/ ... hHome-346/

[daryl]

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/meansst.shtml

don't a few degrees make it toasty

[steve shearer]

Update.

North Coast gets an upgrade to A.
For continuing levels of super fun consistent surf from swells across the spectrum in the 3-4ft range and sublime conditions.

BUT.

As Don has pointed out models are now firming on a major cold outbreak early/mid next week with this weekends Tasman low acting as a precursor and the continental high pressure belt shifting northwards a few degrees.
This allows a window for a strong Tasman low to develop mid next week (not strictly an ECL BTW Don) with firming odds for a solid S'ly groundswell.
For the North Coast we'd prefer the axis of the low to stay as southwards as possible to minimise the short range unruly bank-busting south swell and maximise groundswell. There are alot of sandslugs waiting to be shifted by a S'ly groundswell event.
Short range and stormier swells tend to deposit more of this sand on outer bars. Groundswells push it around corners and lay it down in the lee of headlands.

Longer term and atmospheric weather models are mixed on the prospect of this Nino (or Modoki Nino depending on whether you belong to the post or pre '75 school of thought regarding nino formations) rebounding into a Nina.
Even the re-calibration back to neutral leaves us in a 2006 type situation(pumping winter); a more solid rebound to Nina sparked the ECL frenzy we saw in 2007 and that cannot be discounted at this stage.

Take home message: Mexico's gunna be alright Leroy!

[Nick Carroll]

a more solid rebound to Nina sparked the ECL frenzy we saw in 2007 and that cannot be discounted at this stage.

No indeed it cannot.

Sydney area remains at a soggy C+. Lovely weather though.

[Donweather]

(not strictly an ECL BTW Don)

Yeah I know Steve, but ECL is easier to type