On Friday afternoon I surfed the first pulse of Tropical Cyclone Evan. It had been a week and a half since Swellnet forecaster, Craig Brokensha, first predicted the swell and hopes were high for good waves. Unfortunately the place I surfed wasn't coping with the swell, although only 4-5 feet it was closing out bank to bank. Yet despite the less-than-ideal conditions it was great to get some perspective on the nature and idiosyncracies of this cyclone swell.

The words 'cyclone swell' are enough to get an east coast surfers' heart racing. Images of persistent eight foot lines pounding out of the north-east come to mind and the memory lingers on those special swells that light up the whole east coast from Eden to Noosa. Names are recalled: Wati, Jasper, Vania, Bola, Betsy...

The swell from Evan was a true cyclone swell, one that was generated in the core of a severe, slow moving tropical cyclone, and yet it was nothing like those famous swells mentioned above. The reason Evan won't be remembered as a classic cyclone swell was that it was formed in isolation. Despite spending a week in the far reaches of our swell window and wreaking havoc on Samoa and Fiji Evan lacked the associated weather features required to create classic cyclone swell conditions.

When I was surfing on Friday sets would arrive every five to ten minutes with nothing in between them. Absolutely nothing - flat. It's one thing to have inconsistent sets but quite another when they're the only waves breaking.

The reason - at least the reason I think - for this aspect was the diminutive area of swell-producing winds. Operating in isolation Evan was a mere pinprick of a storm with severe winds blowing over a very small area of ocean. This created a swell that was uniform and extremely inconsistent.

If, for instance, Evan was cradled by a high pressure system there would've been a broad area of strong winds of various strength and duration. This would've generated a swell with a greater range of period and size. It might also have meant multiple swell sources, all borne from the one system, but created at different times from differing areas within the system.

The inconsistency was magnified by the distance, as swells are, but the one-dimensional nature of the winds bore a swell that was equally one-dimensional on the coast.

From an observational sense it was interesting to note the nature of the swell from Evan as we rarely experience swells displaying these characteristics. Coastal authorities, however, had a hard time reporting on the unusual conditions. The high periods triggered dangerous surf warnings yet for the most part the surf didn't get into a dangerous size.

Friday morning saw 'dangerous surf' stories reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and across the radio networks while barely 2-3 foot waves broke on the beaches. Although it presented no threat to surfers it's rock fisherman most at risk in such conditions. The danger is being lulled into a false sense of security by a flat ocean only to have the rock shelf intermittently swamped by the inconsistent sets. The situation made for confused news reporters having to talk up the head high waves.

Issuing blanket warnings for all coastal users is fraught with danger, not least in that it may create a 'boy who cried wolf' scenario. Next time there is genuinely dangerous surf users may pay less heed to warnings if they think the authorities have got it wrong again.

As I write this article a new cyclone is appearing at the outer reaches of the model runs. If they hold true we should see a cyclone near New Caledonia on New Years Eve. Tropical Cyclone Evan was a system for the surfing forecasters; there was arguably more interest in observing the system and deconstructing its mechanics than in surfing it. Lesson time is over though, let's hope the next system aligns with a large high pressure system to deliver a classic cyclone swell.