Quiksilver Pro Forecast Update
While it's not as epic as last week, the waves are pretty bloody good across the Gold Coast this morning with a moderate easterly swell and an overnight southerly wind shift.
Our current easterly swell has been generated by a near-stationary high pressure system in the Tasman Sea being squeezed by a broad coastal trough. The combination is aiming strong east-northeast winds towards the East Coast of Australia.
This trough moved offshore overnight, taking the torrential rain with it, but also grooming consistent lines of east swell along the Gold Coast's sand bottom points.
With the trough moving offshore, the east-northeast fetch generating the swell is retreating slowly to the east, away from us, meaning the swell should ease back slightly from 3-4ft tomorrow (Friday) morning.
Fortunately, a small embedded low in the trough between Northern NSW and New Caledonia is forecast to intensify throughout Friday, retrograding slowly west-southwest while deepening further into Saturday. This will generate an increase in easterly swell through Saturday to 3-4ft ahead of a bigger east-southeast swell Sunday around 4-6ft.
Local conditions are looking excellent Friday and Saturday as the embedded low pushes closer to us bringing offshore south-west to south-east breezes. Come Sunday, however, when the larger swell fills in, the low will track north of the Gold Coast, swinging the wind direction around to the east or possibly even the east-northeast, which is onshore at Snapper Rocks. That said, there may be enough size for Kirra (3-5ft), which handles easterly winds better than Snapper Rocks.
Moving into next week and moderate to large levels of easterly swell should continue through the first half of the week. They'll ease slowly through the middle of the week but the wind outlook remains tricky with a lingering east-northeast flow likely at first. However, we may see periods of variable winds at times.
Later in the week (second to last day of the waiting period) a southerly change is due, but the swell will have eased back to a slow 2ft to maybe 3ft, smaller again Saturday mixed in with a moderate sized south-southeast swell.
We'll continue to monitor the dynamic and complex weather system off our coast in the comments below.
Comments
How sick are the waves today!looking so good for Hi fi surfing this is looking like the best Quiksilver pro snapper in years I'm enjoying it already Yeww!
I agree with Craig - They should have been on GC last week....east swell, not as good as sth swells hey? Like Free said, WSL can't take a trick.
This arvo watching two guys out surfing fun sand bottom point runners with that late evening glass (LAGO) made me want to move back to the Goldie.
Then Kelly's heat finished and before you could blink it was crowded chaos and reality hit me hard and the dream was a shattered.
Winds have just come up from ther north on the Goldy (N'ly under 10kts at Coolangatta, NW under 10kts at the Seaway) but it's still moderate to fresh SW at Byron and it looks like southerlies are now encroaching the Northern NSW coast - winds are S/SW at Coffs and Yamba, and S'ly at Evans Head.
So, we should see the wind swing back to the south at Snapper Rocks around the middle of the day. This means we may see a few surface bumps up the face over the coming hours, but the afternoon should be very good.
Kiwi, you can keep talking it down..... Stick to your guns..... But from where I sit, it looks pretty nice... A lot better than what people were pessimistically waffling would happen last week.
Nah - craig called it right, IMO, sth swells way better than east on the Goldy. Should have been there last week - "However, just like last year, come opening day we'll only be looking at small and fading leftovers for the start of the Quiksilver Pro. It'll be clean but struggling to top 2ft on Day 1 (Tuesday), and then it'll get smaller from there on."
"sth swells way better than east on the Goldy" - are you tripping?
Drugs are bad..... Mmmmkay..... bahahahahaha
Your calling has been spot on for this swell SD, credit where credit is due. `you nailed it.
Cheers, FR... That's nice of you. Just happy you guys finally got some swell after that shocking wave drought.
Winds are now S/SW at Byron and a little stronger, so the southerly gradient flow is obviously becoming established across the Far North (in fact winds are S/SE at Yamba, gusting 27kts).
The southerly can't be much more than an hour away from the Goldy.
Brisbane doppler radar suggests W/SW flow across the region, which is at odds with the local surface northerly flow (it's likely a shallow northerly layer; Doppler winds record what's happening above the ground; the vertical height exaggerated the further you are away from the radar).
Looks like the northerly had eased right off now.
Southerlies are now gusting 26kts at Cape Byron. Feels like it went through the Swellnet office in Kingy about ten minutes ago, so it should be in Cooly very shortly.
kiwibob must be jet ski owner, or best paddler in the world if he thinks south swells the go here. Yes it sorts the crowd out because of the sweep, especially on dropping tide.
Thank God for the internet as I am bed ridden after my epic little bodysurfing session Tuesday so am enjoying watching great surfing in decent waves.
Bob my problem was with the corporate aspect never the surfing. So chill out bru, watch the action, they'll be gone in two weeks.
He was going berserk on that thing
Fanning 7.17 for a 9+ ride aw get fucked !
Bit perplexed by that too. Thought he got the score easy.
Dickie Porta has said the only bazzas they're scoring are behind the rocks...but still, Mick was going nuts.
I think if Mick had bigger waves he would have won. I agree that the barrel was underscored. I think if anyone can win 2 events this year they"ll probably win the tittle. It will be a bonus for Kelly if he can get a good result at Snapper.
Fast forward to Sunday evening, I just watched Parko v De Souza . Although the conditions had deteriorated Parko was in classic form. He definitely had his flow on
Parko is looking like a strong contender to take out the event! The Aussie leg of the tour his my favourite for sure!
Just tuned in to the quikkie pro for the first time, checked out day 5 highlight vid on WSL website. Pretty irritating viewing, one manoeuvre bites padded with beach activities. Annoying to watch, I just wanted to see a round up of the best waves of the day in their entirety. This seems to be different from previous years.
??? hmmm Im not really a slater fan but they ask for variety speed and flow how could
of medina win that heat . In disgust im just turned it off and now watching motor racing.
Yeah no way Medina's wave was 1.7 better than Kelly's.
Im a bit bias when it comes to Kelly, but i thought both waves should have been in the similar range, maybe Mediana's a bit higher.
I was expecting Kelly to scrape thought or at the very least it should have been much closer.
They really seem to be scoring Goofys higher this year, i thought variety was suppose to be a big part of the criteria but seems not.
Yeah i agree with you guys. I'm just a bit baffled as to why they went so high with Medina. If a wave is in the 9's then it has to be amazing and too many of Gabbys turns were just carves. I watched that heat from the rocks with a bunch of pretty knowledgable blokes and general consensus was Gabbys wave no more than a point better than Kellys but judges found a way to get Gabby through. Steph has been ripping too
Feels like we are back in the late 80's Damien Hardman & Barton Lynch era when repetitive back hand surfing got the scores.
How on earth was Wilkos last wave an 8?
His first wave was way better and only a 7.8
Something went wrong there, hey? Didn't see it live, just watched it on heat analyser, then had to watch it again and again to find what I missed. Repeat viewings didn't help. I cant see how on earth that was an 8-pointer - and I watched all the other waves in the heat to get the gauge on scoring.
yep agree, nearly fell off the couch when they announced a 8, JOhn was very stiff i reckon.
Finals in absolute junk. They save money pulling down all their signage early. Hopeless.
Shit waves to end it a shame but quite the good news story to start the year for the WSL... had a sneaky 10 on Owen to win @ 34 as well...
So the new formula to get high scores at Snapper is to be goofy and do the same bottom turn/top turn combo over and over again at nauseum. When did 'variety' go out the judging criteria window?
'Twas the same the year Medina won. Like a pendulum going up and down with very little variation. If this year wasn't the year to reward barrels, then no year will be henceforth
I suppose all eyes turn to the indian ocean now.... Not really my forte..... But looks like swell at the start, then flatness...... Until........... The chance of a Madagascan tropical low heading south into the southern swell train.... That could be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.
Oh Gawd, WSL can't snag a trick. Looks like they're gonna be skunked again with an XXL swell aimed straight at Margs a few days before the waiting period starts!!!
WSL did pretty good at Quik Pro though, waves were great for the majority of the event.
Saturday, particularly from mid-late morning was pretty shit and considering they were the prime/key rounds, it was pretty ordinary to watch. But agreed they scored it better than we all first thought they were gonna get.