Coral Sea Low n' stuff

[thermalben]

Interesting developments up in the Coral Sea - a tropical low has dominated the region NNE of Cooktown for most of this last week, but it's been near stationary and effectively useless for Qld and NSW surfers due to it's latitude. There's still mixed opinions as to what the low will do (although there's a reasonable concensus that we'll have a TC within the next 24 hours or so), but a line in the Qld BOM's state forecast caught my eye this morning..

Strong winds and treacherous seas will develop along the south coast for the first part of the week due to this high and the tropical cyclone which will move only slowly southeastwards across the southern Coral Sea

Now, what does this mean to everyone? On the sliding scale of all things weather related, 'treacherous' is certainly not lounging around the bottom end of the spectrum. While we certainly have a large wave event on the cards, 'treacherous' wasn't mentioned in any public forecast for the last tropical low during the Quiksilver Pro (which produced peak wave heights of 46' at the Tweed and Pt Lookout buoys), and I can't see this being bigger than that (current indicataions are that it'll be much smaller, but nevertheless still quite a sizable event at some stage mid-week). Although this forecast is directed more so towards boaties than surfers, what's the general opinion across the board here? As a surfer, when you read 'treacherous seas' in the BOM's outlook notes, what's the first thing that comes to mind?

[thermalben]

Interestingly, the BOM has changed their sea state description within the space of 6 hours:

Very windy conditions and rough seas along the central coast should extend to the southern coast on Sunday, these conditions then persisting through to Wednesday

This seems to be a little more indicitive of the probable ocean conditions (at least it gives a little bit of leeway in the event that the low either deepens or fizzes).

[Innerview]

http://www.ski.com.au/weather/cola_mslp_96.html



A lot of isobars very close together directing to our zone for next week.

[tiger]

Wednesday is gonna be epic. Big E swell and winds going more S. I reckon it's gonna get as big as the last swell, the only difference being better winds (from the S-E quadrant), meaning the points will be on bigtime.

[thermalben]

I reckon it's gonna get as big as the last swell

It'll be interesting to see how big it does get, but I reckon that we won't see quite as much size as the last one - for interest, it may well have been the largest wave event recorded in Qld, as the EPA's website states that the largest wave ever recorded in Qld waters was in 1993 (TC Roger, 13.1m, Pt Lookout buoy). Early evening on March 5th, 2004 recorded 14.3m (47') at Pt Lookout, and although wave heights on the beach didn't replicate these figures, there's no denying that this photo isn't anything short of huge (pic is of Parko at the Tweed Bar on Saturday March 6th). I am still chasing up whether that last event was in fact the biggest event on record.. will update as soon as I find out.

I doubt we'll see waves that big on Wednesday, but all the same it's certainly looking pretty sizeable.