Severe Tropical Cyclone Victor has been meandering around the South Pacific for the last five days, holding Category 3 strength south-east of Samoa. Those of you who frequent the Southeast Queensland written forecast would have first read about this system eight days ago, in last Monday’s forecast notes. 

There are several points of comparison between Victor and Severe Tropical Cyclone Ula, which reached Category 4 status as it passed close to New Caledonia a week and a half ago, providing a decent, if somewhat inconsistent E’ly swell for the East Coast.

Victor is a much broader system, with core wind speeds above 50kts (and up to 60kts+) spreading across a much wider radius than Ula. After a slow southerly trajectory throughout the last few days, Victor has recently begun a curve towards the west - aimed straight at the Australian East Coast, albeit more than 4,000km from the mainland. 

STC Victor's forecast track, courtesy RSMC Nadi Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre 

On the other hand, Ula wasn’t able to take advantage of its favourable proximity to the mainland, mainly tracking perpendicular (S/SE) through the swell window which reduced its swell potential. 

The westward trajectory of Victor will help to enhance wave height generation, along with a strong ridge to the south of Victor, which is broadening easterly gales about its southern flank. 

But what’s most impressive about Victor is its longevity. Model guidance has been pretty reliable on this system so far, and despite an expectation for a technical weakening (as a tropical cyclone) over the coming days, it looks like Victor’s broad surface wind field will remain at strength up until about Sunday. That’s around ten days of swell production, the last six or seven of which will have been favourably positioned inside our swell window. 

The only downer on this swell event will be its inconsistency. The enormous travel distance between Victor and Australia will result in only the moderate to higher swell periods making landfall, and due to the strong, pulsing nature of the cyclone, we’ll probably see overlapping swell trains at the coast - each travelling at a different speed.

This makes it difficult to estimate precise swell trends throughout the forecast period, but we’re pretty confident in the overall outlook, which is upwards very slowly from Thursday through Friday and Saturday, peaking into Sunday across South-east Queensland and Northern NSW, then plateauing across Southern NSW from Sunday through Monday. 

In fact, it’s likely that we’ll see some form of E’ly groundswell across the East Coast right through until about Wednesday of next week, maybe even early Thursday.

There’s one other forecast aspect that needs to be closely monitored - local winds. A ridge across the coast will maintain northerlies through Thursday and Friday as the swell builds, however a weak trough is modelled to slide up the coast on Saturday, probably not bringing about a defined wind change, but likely disrupting the northerly regime across most coasts (though it may still linger about the Sunshine and possibly Gold Coasts for a bit). 

So, how much size will we see? 

Once again, I cannot overstate enough just how inconsistent this swell event is going to be. But the weekend pulse should push somewhere into the 3-5ft range across most coasts, albeit with up to twenty minutes between sets. 

Some of the more reliable swell magnets up and down the East Coast - particularly Northern NSW - may rake in bigger rogue waves (6ft+) but for the most part it’s looking like a fairly decent, fun summer groundswell, with a little more ooomph than usual. Probably not as useful as a trade swell event - which despite a smaller period and lack of overall strength, usually produces an exponentially higher number of waves per day - but still, yet another quality East Coast swell to chalk up for the summer of 2016. 

It’s been pretty good so far, eh?

Choose your forecast from the list below, and stay tuned to our forecast notes as we hone in on the specifics later this week. //BEN MATSON

Sunshine Coast
Gold Coast forecast
Ballina forecast
Yamba forecast
Coffs Harbour forecast
Port Macquarie forecast
Newcastle forecast
Central Coast forecast
Northern Beaches forecast
Eastern Beaches forecast
Cronulla forecast
Wollongong forecast
Ulladulla forecast