RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Saw a presentation from Peter helman recently.
His gut feel seemed to be back into Nina

haha, Peter Helman.

Legendary loose cannon.

Well, gut feel is maybe worth something.

One thing in Helmans favour: This area is incredibly sensitive to ENSO shifts, often displaying the characteristics of a certain state well before any official recognition. He would be observing this, as others do.

At the moment and generally speaking for this autumn we seem to be in a cool wet phase typical of La Nina.

steve shearer wrote:Wet winter?
ECL filled winter ala 2007?

This is sort of what I was trying to decipher with my query above about the very warm waters at present.

I can feel a 2007 coming!!!

hope so, but 2007 was characterised by a very calm, warm May. That allowed the settling of large sand slugs close to the Pointbreaks.

All the winter ECL's of that season (save the last August one) formed south of Coffs Harbour. This pushed the sand slugs onto the Points.

August's QLD ECL wiped out the banks.

well it is a very calm warm May down here.

I think this is gonna be a fairly quiet winter meself.

Nick Carroll wrote:well it is a very calm warm May down here.

I think this is gonna be a fairly quiet winter meself.

You been talking to those Shawks again, haven't you.

I keep hearing about these slugs. How big are they? Serious question as well. I googled a bit but ended up a bit flummoxed.

When you are talking about sand slugs in a coastal context you are normally talking about bodies of sand pulsing around headlands in a longshore direction like those described here, on pg19:
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resou ... scliff.pdf
Very common on the mid-north NSW- SEQ coastline.
There are also cross-shore movements of sand that depend on swell direction and size. Steve has sort of mixed the two together in his description.

Recently the term has been used to describe the dumping of sand in a discrete area to try and focus wave energy:
http://www.swellnet.com.au/news/2462-cr ... ll-natural
http://www.swellnet.com.au/news/3041-th ... -sand-slug

Thanks 'Boo. Informative reading. Seeing the effects now at my local where when conditions are right a lovely little sand spit forms reeling off rights on an east swell. Sand is currently being laid down with a rip ahead of it.
. I suspect a local classic (although highly dependent on creek run off) is also a beneficiary of slugs.

Yeah, if you surf the same point or creek-controlled break regularly you'll pick up on the pulses.
Though a lot of creek and lagoon entrances are managed these days which has impacted on some.

I think those creek or ICOLL breaks are a slightly different kettle of fish.

They are more dependent on the run-off disturbing that longshore drift or build-up of sand more or less perpendicular to the prevailing sand flow.


There is inshore and offshore movement of sand caused by storm events but yes, I'm mostly referring to the discontinuous process of longshore transport of sand.

IE, the sand builds up under calm conditions and is then transported in large amounts by (mostly)S to SE wind and wave regimes during autumn/winter.

There's still a marked deficit in the nearshore zone here after the Jan/Feb storm events.

It would be nice to see those banks replenished for winter.

Yeah I was meaning the second type of sand slug I.e. deposit from a pulse of runoff. Cross shore being the dominant process, temporarily.

As far as I can discern at the local classic - a point set up with creek emptying along the point, rain events gouge a hole and as it hits the end of the point the water takes a turn north. This leaves a dog leg style outflow.Sand builds up and is laid down in periods of low rainfall and after the south swells have pushed the sand in and settled around the rock base on the outside take off spot.

Yeah well my beach is suffering from a lack of sand

Sand shifts in big erratic swells from Newport to Bilgola and back again, and sometimes between Newport and Bungan. Sometimes (very rarely) sand is lost to all three beaches in truly massive east swells, when mega rips suck sand out past the headland line and you just don't ever see it again, but that's hardly ever happened in my life.

But in recent months, crazy east swells followed by crazy south swells have shovelled a bunch of sand out of mid and north Newport and dumped it at Bilgola. This has created a really fcuked hole at Newport north of the peak, where a semi permanent rip has now set sand in a thin closeout line across the peak rocks.

Normally that hole would have been full of sand, rip runoff would have focused in mid-beach, and the Peak would have been really fcuken good on numerous occasions over the past three months. But no. We are stuck with this shit setup for the entire autumn/winter phase and will need a long cycle of near flat conditions (to shift the closeout sand line beachward) followed by very unlikely combinations of solid east and NE swells (to get some sand back from Bilgola) before some semblance of decency is restored.

Meanwhile Newport is a kook beach, arrrrgggghhhhhhh

Sounds like there are banks just north of newy then