RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Just curious as to how often the east coast of aus would experience massive swells of over 20ft? Maybe the old timers can recall the last time something like this occur? What would be needed weather wise in our region for such an event to occur, ben?

depends how you mesure that 20ft if your measuring down the back harcore style then never

ON the wall at my parents place at terrigal we have a picture of a freak 30ft wave breaking off The Haven around new years 1985. it is massive, completely unfathomable, especiually if your used to what terrigal is normally like

Large East Coast swells are generated by either East Coast Lows or Tropical Cyclones (or a significant Tasman Low if it's positioned favourably). These are much different to the swell generating systems of the Southern Ocean, and therefore require a different set of circumstances to evolve favourably for us to receive large swells. That is, they need to to be near-stationary for a couple of days and surface wind speeds need to be very strong. Also, as these systems usually occur as "one-off" events, we're much more likely to see waves in this size range if the swell source (ie the low) is located very close to the coastline. Unfortunately, this usually results in a lot of rain and windy conditions at the same time.

Compare this to WA - they're on track for a potential 20' swell later next week (Fri/Sat), but the primary swell generating system is expected to originate several thousand kilometres away. However, the key difference here is that several strong frontal systems are likely to precede the main low in the 3-5 days prior, so the ocean will already be very "active", thus requiring less effort to generate very large wave heights.

so in summary we should drive west these holidays?

Yep. WA, SA and Vic are looking really good for the next two weeks. Really, really good infact.

Ah cheers for that

guess its a bad time to be headin north............

ah nips

if got a temporarily screwed toe so i can't go for a surf anyway for the next few days. i really should start wearing shoes when i play touch footy, but then everone gets pissed off cos i'll pass on the injury