Welcome Tropical Cyclone Freda
Tropical Cyclone Freda was named by the RSMC Nadi Tropical Cyclone Centre (Fiji) in the early hours of Saturday morning, having meandered slowly as a tropical depression through the waters north of Vanuatu since Boxing Day.
TC Freda is currently a Category 1 system, positioned just south of Rennell Island, one of of two inhabited islands that make up the Rennell and Bellona Province in the Solomon Islands. The cyclone is intensifying as it tracks southwest at 8 knots.
The forecast path for TC Freda pushes it in a southwards direction over the coming days, eventually recurving past New Caledonia towards the south-southeast. At the moment TC Freda is located a very large distance from the South-east Queensland region - some 1,900km from the Gold Coast, 1,750km from the Sunshine Coast and 1,600km from Agnes Water.
The intensifying stages of TC Freda over the coming days presents some very interesting swell possibilities for Queensland surfers. Sustained wind strengths around TC Freda's core are expected to reach 70kts or more (albeit within a very small area), and the cyclone's favourably slow southerly track should further assist in the generation of heavy north-easterly swells. Furthermore, a developing ridge of high pressure across the southern Coral Sea will help to establish an active sea state in the region, which TC Freda will then be able to capitalise on once it pushes further south into these waters.
Although Tropical Cyclones occur regularly in the Coral Sea between December and April, they often remain too far north or east to be of any benefit to surfers in southern Queensland. As such, long period north-easterly groundswells are not particularly common at Queensland beaches - so it'll be interesting to see how various points, reefs and banks react to the change in directional energy.
Current indications are that we'll see a mix of swells in the water across the Gold and Sunshine Coasts early next week. A pre-existing easterly tradeswell should be nearing a peak around 3-4ft by Monday, with larger but much less frequent waves from the cyclone slowly appearing from the north-east throughout the day (ahead of a peak on Tuesday), building upwards to around 6ft, maybe even 8ft at times.
Additionally, the long period north-easterly (tending east-northeast) swell energy should activate some of the more sheltered locations that often don't see a lot of size, such as the southern end of Bribie Island, Agnes Water, and Bargara near Bundaberg.
As for the NSW coast, the cyclone swell will generally remain unfavourable in direction from the north, so wave heights will probably be quite attenuated at most locations.
However, a handful of exposed north-facing swell magnets (now there's an infrequently used term!) in Northern NSW certainly have the potential to pick up some 4-6ft sets at times - just be prepared for much smaller waves at the majority of locations. Increasing distance from the NSW/Qld border will lessen the chances of seeing any appreciable size from TC Freda; southern NSW locales won't see anything from this phase of the cyclone whatsoever.
Looking beyond Monday and Tuesday, and there are some exciting possibilities for the second half of next week. There is some divergence between computer models as to how TC Freda will evolve as it slides past New Caledonia, however the European solution suggests a large high pressure system in the Tasman Sea could very well cradle TC Freda as it undergoes extratropical transition, broadening and restrengthening an easterly fetch around its southern flank.
If this were to occur, we could well be looking at a very large and sustained swell event across the entire East Coast, centred on the Northern NSW and South-east Qld coasts (ballpark size in the 8-10ft+ range, if this scenario pans out). This is all still quite some time away however anyone within earshot of the East Coast should start quietly putting away some flexi time for the end of next week and the following weekend (Queensland surfers should also plan for a quiet New Years Eve, and a busy couple of days in the water thereafter). We'll update this outlook in the comments section below this article over the coming days.
Comments
Nothing is sweeter than hearing the words swell event
Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. You forgot to mention the southerly blowing hard from Victoria about to converge on Qld spinning sand barrels with board shorts and tonne of zinc. Yeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
JTWC update saying after Freda clears the islands, rapid intensification possible and they are calling for a peak of 100knts sustained by 72 hours
shes looking pretty elongated showing an extended N/NE infeed.
anything hit the east coast of tas do you reckon ?
Geez, KB, you guys get swell all year round down there. It's SE Qlds turn to shine right now!!!
As Ben has alluded to above, I think you guys will get more swell from ex TC Freda, once she goes extra tropical out in the Tasman (SE of New Cal).
And I'd say you could see around 2-3ft of NE groundswell towards the end of the first week in the NY. (From Thurs 3rd onwards).
Grrrrrrrr!!!! loody latest GFS (00z) run appears to already downgrade the swell from Freda, due to a new forecast track of S/SE'wards rather than S/SW.
ec's path has now completely changed. Will probably change again a few times I reckon.
Freda is lining up to be a great north'ish swell IMO, you don't get them a lot these days ie: TC's tracking/generating outa the north and holding position. Don, don't worry about the S wind for offshore, it will come, and it will straighten up sweet as 'Bro.
Swells where the rip heads almost, or even, South. More blue water, less sand. Can hang around and generate for weeks, day after day, till your arms drop off. Freeride may care to back me up on these swells, they are the best.
Not up to speed on the modern technical stuff, but I can read a synoptic in motion... looks good to me as an old timer. :-)
Merry Xmas & Happy New Year SN crew.
sid.
Poncho, for me, EC now looks to slowly but surely be coming around to align with GFS...with this system being whisked away to the SE....as to whether it goes ET or not....well that's for the models to align with over the coming days.
Gee, although traditionally, the 06z run of GFS is less reliable, geezus it looks good with the main fetch just sneaking west of New Cal!!!!
Latest COLA synoptic forecast has Freda tracking SE toward NZ next week, then slightly west into the Tasman Sea on Saturday 5th. I know its a long shot, but.....
http://ski.com.au/weather/cola/mslp/168.html
Seems like Freda had a bit too much to drink last night.
She's wobbling all over the 160 line like a drunken fa'afa'fine.
This'll be a fun one to watch and I do believe in my heart of hearts that with it's erratic track it will contain some unforecastable pulses that will only make sense in the hindcast.
Now, as for this GFS ETS and re-curve back into the Tasman...........holy sheeit.
Steve, is the latest GFS runs having a brain explosion or are we going to actually see wave heights from TC Freda that it's currently progging to peak mid next week?
Interesting mix of swell forecasts from the BOM at this stage.
Capricornia Waters, St Lawrence to Burnett Heads: Monday: Swell: E to NE 1.5 to 2 metres developing.
Fraser Island Waters, Sandy Cape to Double Island Point: Swell: E to NE 1.5 to 2 metres developing.
Double Island Point to Point Danger: Monday: Swell: E 1.5 metres developing.
Byron Coast: Monday: Swell: Southeasterly 1 metre.
(note: only the NSW BOM have a swell forecast for Tuesday at this stage.. for the Byron Coast it is "Easterly 1.5 metres").
Latest GFS update is still sticking with the recurve once it's extra-tropical and this will produce the best pulse of swell for the Southern NSW coast next Monday if it comes through.
And Don, it looks like the peak has now been shifted to late/overnight Tuesday on the Goldy and North Coast, and I'm still thinking only 6ft+ on the Goldy and 5-6ft on the North Coast's exposed beaches. When do you expect the peak by your calculations?
Craig, I think it will come a little earlier, around lunch time-mid afternoon on Tuesday for the SC and Goldy, but hold this size for most of Tuesday afternoon and for most of Wednesday until after lunch.
And bugger me, if the latest GFS charts come off for ex TC Freda mid-late next week, Freda could go down as one of the better swell producing systems/lows (sustained duration)!!!!
And I wouldn't be surprised if there's some freak 6-8ft clean up sets at NE facing beaches come Tuesday afternoon.
Although I will place a caveat on the above....there's a myriad of small islands, exposed reefs, shallow reefs etc up there that will have a significant impact on swell heights if they're in the path of the fetch/swell, and my calcs can't take these into account (and I'd be interested to know if the swell models can do such also?).
And she's just gone Cat 4 according to Fiji Met, and still expected to slightly intensify.
The swell models have obstruction and island maps in built and a transparency value between 1 and 0 is given to the swell dependent on the resolution of the model. It's pretty complicated but the obstruction can be placed on a certain boundary dependant on the next cells transparency.
And I agree with your forecast Don, Tuesday afternoon on the Goldy will probably be at peak size, with the late afternoon/evening further south.
I'm having a bit of trouble on choosing south or north of Brissy for this... I know what to expect when the forecast says something like "smaller on the sunshine coast", but not sure about "Much smaller at remaining open beaches." in the Yamba forecast.
Care to elaborate a bit on that anyone. I'm keeping Steve's comments in mind, so I know it's bound to be good somewhere south of Byron and its crowds, but how frequently along the coast?
What angle is the primary swell coming in at and how much will it change over the days and what other swells will be in the water?
day one n ne direction . day2 ne . day 3 ne/ e. day4 e. day 5, e/ se. day 6 se . sunny coast to cresent. i think add 2-3ft to the swell graphs sizes for the first 3 days, don ,freeride whats your thoughts ?
Oh boy ... This is really exciting.
sid the fish, whats your call.....how long since you've seen a map like this.....freda in the right spot....nice looking winds, fuck all i can see thats gonna fuck this swell up.
Huh? NSW BOM have updated their Byron Coast forecast for Tuesday: "Swell: Southerly 1 metre tending easterly 1 to 2 metres from the morning".
So, no NE swell in the water at all. On Monday they have a 1m S'ly swell forecast (not sure where that's coming from!), no developing E'ly trade swell like the Qld BOM does, and no late arrival of NE swell.
As for the Qld BOM - they haven't updated their swell outlook for Tuesday yet. I suspect it's routinely done only once per day unless there, unless a major event is on their doorstep (which is kinda is.. so from tomorrow it'll probably be more frequent as this event gets underway).
A couple of interesting days ahead indeed!
BOM interactive wave chart.........freda does not exist.
Massive model discrepancy..........hold fire with the calls ladies and gents.
Shit, I'm sitting on the mid-north coast with three boards, a 5'8, 5'10 & a 5' freakin 11 (thanks Craig!), meanwhile there's cyclone talk everywhere and a certain rivermouth reputedly in fine form. Last time I surfed it was 6-8 foot and needed a 7 plus board. Forgive me for hoping this thing's gonna be a dud.
im gonna stick my neck out and say direct hit on Fraser as a powerful extra tropical system with a nice high pressure underneath it.
Massive call.
"Massive model discrepancy..........hold fire with the calls ladies and gents."
Care to elaborate on the timeframe you're talking about Steve? You talking about now, or in the medium term?
Also, how's this, there's already been a TC Freda...in 1981....and how fecking freaky is this.....it hit New Caledonia also!!!
Hi. long time listener first time caller here! Valued the advice of the the weathermen on this site over the years. Living in mackay for the last 2 years have become quite a chart watcher, novelty break chaser. specifically in this event, (I'm in southeast for new year), I'm thinking bribie island, however I'm wondering if anything but offshore wind will render it not surfable, and how much the swell will refract from the forecast size. Typically mackay north harbour needs a bouy reading of over 2.0 or more and can only handle 3.5 before it goes to the dogs. I'm not expecting people to divulge secret locals, but I don't have the wares to deal with noosa or goldy points. Who can point me in the right direction to find sheltered locals on a ne swell event like this, that don't require a jestski to get to and does anyone know if bribie will be a legit option. cheers.
Stu, you'd be complaining the whole time if ya had a 7'0 in the car taking up all the space on an off chance there's one day you could surf it (on a call made 8 days in advance of the swell), jeez you can never win with this forecasting gig, haha!
I reckon you won't even need it, prob 4-6ft max down at exposed spots around where you are if you're lucky, prob more 4-5ft early Wednesday.
Dromo, check ya private messages!!!
Stu packing van now leaving Manly in the morning heading north, I can drop you a board if you need one. Packing 7'6 7'0 and a couple of 8'0s. After all that though I'll probably only ride my short board.
Looks like Freda is going to hit New Cal on the flank. Hopefully downgrade to a tropical depression by then though
Hey i live in newcastle and am doing a trip up to crescent on wednesday and then onto yamba. Would it be worth leaving early tuesday to chase this cyclone swell to cresecent? or will it not come through that early?
Cheers ryan
for those that are interested in the steering of Freda.
OMG Dromo hahahahaha I was thinking of Mackay AND Bribie today as I've spent a fair bit of time at both. I've squashed into super fast, dredging, 1.5ft shories on a clubbie board at Bribie. Decent period SE swells will make their way in, so definitely hit it up! There's so much sand moving around there too that you're bound to find a bank. As for wind shelter, I dunno. But yeah I am seriously considering popping in there as it is as the locals say, Brisbane's closest surf beach!
I'll probably cop shit for this, but the very northern tip of that island you speak of mitchvg can be ALL TIME!
About 20 years ago I used to wait for the right conditions, solid NE-ENE swell and light northerlies and hit it with absolutely nobody out.
Used to do the paddle across Pumicestone passage or drive the Hi-lux up along the beach on low tide.
100 metre + overhead barrelling lefts. Very fickle but if you get it on, it's unbelievable.
Thanks for that Poncho. Great quote "...the Uk Met is off its tree.."
@ ryan Southerly change Wednesday so good for Crescent with 100 new friends
Haha yeah I've heard heaps of stories and they all end with a comment on how fickle it is.
I agree, fickle tends to be an overused word. Lets just say you just gotta be ready to go when the planets align.
And if you score it on, you'll be babbling about it for weeks.
see QLD bom have powerful surf warning in their regional outlook starting tomorrow??
funny thing mithv is that I'm frothing after seeing 40kn wind speed in mackay. How do i stop the infection? Oh yeah I remember now, sunshine. Sunshine and waves together!! Add light winds. HELP. Nobody mention the sunshine coast, I will combust!!
Very interesting poncholarpez. Qld BOM's 4pm update had no changes at all to their 7am forecast (ie "1.5m E'ly swell developing on the Gold/Sunny Coast Monday"). It's unusual for them to issue a 10:30pm update too, especially with these 'Dangerous Surf Conditions' now expected inside of 24 hours.
NSW BOM haven't changed their Byron outlook though (yet).
FWIW, this cyclone swell has been discussed on Swellnet for over a week now. We also issued a press release to the media on Friday (re: Dangerous Surf in Qld for late Mon/Tues etc), which a couple of news outlets picked up on. So, it's not like this swell event has just popped up out of nowhere. Perhaps the BOM are a little gun shy after TC Evan?
Latest 12z GFS update is unbelievable, full recurve off the extra-tropical system back into SE Qld early next week :o Be interesting to see what EC and the other models have to say..
EC on the other hand has it staying at New Cal latitudes but still swinging back to the west.
OK, something weird's happening at the Qld BOM. Yesterday's two routine forecasts (~4am, ~4pm) for Southern Queensland Coastal Waters Forecast issued the same small swell for today (Building E'ly to 1.5m).
Then at 10:30pm, they updated the outlook, upgrading swell size in all regions. For the Double Island Point to Point Danger region, this was (for Monday) "Swell: E to NE 1.5 to 2.5 metres, increasing to 3.5 metres late evening".
Now - just six hours later - they've downgraded this revised outlook. For the Double Island Point to Point Danger region, the forecast now reads (for Monday): "Swell: E to SE 1.5 to 2 metres".
The Qld BOM also added in yesterday night "Powerful Surf developing late Monday" (and also listed for Tuesday) for their Southeast Coast District and Wide Bay and Burnett District Forecasts. However, it has since been removed from both district forecasts.
This is very strange. Unless poncholarpez had mentioned it above, I probably wouldn't have bothered to check the BOM's site in the early hours of this morning to confirm the significant upgrade. However, such a late upgrade - and even later downgrade - in such a short space of time, just before the arrival of this event is most unusual.
Also, the Qld BOM finally have a swell forecast for Tuesday: "Swell: E 2 metres".
I think the Bom need a phone call from swellnet.
I think they should be serious about this swell, considering there could some dizzy people going for an early morning swim on new yer day!
Wow - model discrepancy is right. Might explain the BOM wave forecasts as they have Freda fizzing out up near New Cal completely.
GFS have it tracking down, recurving W and nuking the Sunny Coast or maybe even Brisbane in a weeks time. They really couldn't be further apart.
Late Sunday and Monday next week looking pretty crazy
Late Sunday and Monday next week looking pretty crazy
Yep goldy123, 18z has gone burko with this thing!! Each model update becomes more and more intriguing.
The BoM's interactive AUSWAVE R model has consistently just aimed wind waves to the west... do they incorporate ASCAT and other data into their models as they become available? If so, I guess the resolution (1/2 a degree) is too coarse to pick up the relatively small area of the storm? And so the broader areas of lower winds dominate the model?
I have a few questions though...
- How much do the islands actually block swell vs the model? If the wave model has a resolution of 0.5deg, will islands with a smaller area than that automatically be bumped up to a larger size to fit into the model?
- How much do winds in between here and there erode the swell?
- Are the forecasters officially allowed to go against their own model and go by GFS or something? Is there some liability issue there?
They do have an ACCESS TC model which is 'run on demand'. It would be nice if they could develop an AUSWAVE that sits on top of that, then do a few calculations by hand for swell arrival at a few key locations along the coast.
Mitch, as I explained to Don above, the models assign a transparency to a grid cell if the land mass is smaller than the grid cell itself and this is how the model resolves small islands and obstacles.
Not sure about the other points, but there is a strong E'ly groundswell for Northern QLD off the bottom and south-western flank of Freda as well and this is probably what you are seeing.
Ok cheers Craig, that makes sense, I just got thrown by " It's pretty complicated but the obstruction can be placed on a certain boundary dependant on the next cells transparency."
mitchvg, my understanding is that the BOM primarily use an automated, model derived system called GFE for most of their forecasts - including marine products - which can be manually tweaked by the duty forecaster (GFE was developed by the US National Weather Service). A combination of model data is input into the model but they typically use the ACCESS solution (and for waves, WW3 - which was a recent change from the AUSWAM model which they used for a long time).
This is one of the reasons why we see sudden unexpected changes as is detailed above - most of the time the duty met is happy to let the model output run as is (keeping in mind they've got a LOT of other forecast products to update besides marine, most of which have a greater bearing on the general public).
However under specific weather events they often need to step in and QC the model output if it's not picking up a particular event very well. This is what I suspect is happening with some of the Byron Coast forecasts at the moment (ie still displaying raw model output.. whilst Qld is being manually updated).
However, different duty meteorologists may have different professional opinions of what might occur - especially if one person has zero marine experience whilst another might be a sailor, surfer etc. This is where the system falls down IMO, and where Dangerous Surf Conditions can have a number of alternative thresholds, depending on the situation.
As for the ACCESS TC model - it's higher resolution but doesn't go out very far, so would have limited use as a swell forecasting product.
Hmmmm, after looking at the ascat passes, I'm now having my doubts about swell from this system for tomorrow (Tuesday).
just went and checked a certain open beach wedgie spot i know of. No north swell but the odd 3 ft set of east swell. lots of water moving round and lots of rips.
Yep, I'm thinking the tradewind swell will be the dominant swell in the morning, being taken over by the NE groundswell very late in the day/evening.
Mudjimba was 3-4 NE swell on dark... certainly new energy from the morning....
Wave buoys aren't showing anything but E/NE tradewind swell at present. Don't get me wrong, there should be some NE groundswell in the water in the morning.....I just don't think it will be bigger than the E/NE tradewind swell.
should be some nice peaks tomorrow
wow, GFS has now scrapped any ETT and recurve back into the Tasman......they just have it drifting off into space as a weakening system.
Yesterday they had a cyclone or hybrid low smashing the QLD coast.
This has to take the cake for model flip-floppery.
They've been all over the place like a mad womans shit.
That's not good news freeride, for someone like me who can't make his trip up the coast till Thursday. I'll be sweating on a more promising update later.
Finally! NE thru' E/NE energy from Freda is now starting to show on the buoys (Gladtone, Emu, Brisbane), albeit well behind schedule. Although, at 13.5 seconds it's probably within expectations - it's just the higher periods associated with the leading edge either never arrived late yesty or were too faint to be detected. In any case, this entire event has been pushed back some 12-18 hours.. so we should see a steady increase in size all day today. Will be interesting to see how much size eventuates.
Well I just finished surfing some fun 3-4ft A frame peaks with just me and my mate. A little wobbly early on, but clean faces and pretty punchy hitting that inner bank. Got glassy once the sun came out and to be honest, the swell looked to be building around 8am with some solid 4ft+ sets coming through, but then it kinda waned a bit towards 9am??
There wasn't any sniff of NE groundswell where I was surfing this morning. I agree with the shift in time for the peak, in fact it now looks to be mid-late morning tomorrow, although I haven't confirmed this from ASCAT passes yet. I'd be thinking inconsistent 4-5ft sets come dark tonight, with perhaps the odd 5ft/5ft+ set come tomorrow (mid-late morning) at E/NE facing beaches.
Hmmmm, latest ASCAT pass has the fetch on the E/SE flank already dissected by the outer edges of New Cal, which is not where the current GFS model has her placed. So I'm not so sure this swell will be hanging around for very long, so I'm thinking a very quick up and down peak tomorrow.
don so do you reckon it will go over new cal then vanish out to sea?
KB, I have no idea what the cyclone will do after it crosses New Cal. Models are all over the place. I was mainly referring to where the cyclone is (as per ASCAT) compared with where GFS has it and the two don't align. as the current ASCAT pass has the fetch on the SE quadrant of TC Freda dissected by New Cal already.
About 1.6m Hsig on the Brisbane buoy with a period waffling between about 10 and 13 secs from the E to NE. Seems the BOM were right to take the powerful surf off for today and keep the swell at 2 metres for today. The European model seems to have done best with the swell with the American model way over doing it.
Actually watcher, the BOM reinstated their 'Powerful Surf' warning yesterday, and it's still in force for the Gold and Sunshine Coasts today, as per their current Southeast Coast Forecast (see here: http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/forecasts/secoast.shtml).
They also have their swell forecast at 2.5m E/NE for the Sunny/Gold Coast today, and up to 3m E/NE on Capricornia Waters.
Agreed though - a pretty underwhelming event thus far.
im putting it down to the SSE drift, had it stuck to the forecast track of S/SSW meandering down the CS then I reckon it would have been a different story.
These things are awfully hard to forecast for swell with the tight northerly angle. Only really easier if you location is directly west of the system.
JTWC has forecast the SE track within the next 24 hours after which they are still forecasting a building mid level ridge below what is left of Freda and therefore still maintaining a westerly track from tau 72 to 96. Most agencies I have seen, lose any confidence in the continued SE track after tau 48.
What is currently effecting new cal is the sheared upper portion of cloud/thunderstorms from the cyclone and not the actual vortex.
oh, and jtwc still have her as a warm cored system on the westward track, so if certain conditions play ball it could re-intensify on approach to the coast
any theory's as to why the Mooloolaba wave buoy isnt showing direction change or period increase??
Poncho, my guess is cause the signal (period of 13sec+) is too insignificant compared to the dominant tradewind swell. Note also the Byron buoy isn't registering it either.
Weird though that Point Lookout buoy is 1.4m whilst Mooloolaba is 2m given the tradewind swell is a distant source?
http://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/coastal/monitoring/waves/index.php
the McKay boy up north already recording 2.8m waves while tweed river still 1m smaller.........thoughts......
Ummmm, Mackay's reading 1.2m.
http://www.ehp.qld.gov.au/coastal/monitoring/waves/site_param.php?siteid...
yeah I saw the Bris buoy reading and compared to Mba i was like wtf? Bris should be picking up bigger trade swell than mba but its registering ne swell but mba isnt??
So confusing. Feeling a bit like a manic depressive atm. One minute woohoos, next time I look at the chart it's boohoos.
Well if it comes inland then it will fill up the inland rivers again. Hope the qlders have got their raincoats handy.
But there's still hope for us poor folk south of Byron, just a lot less than 5 minutes or so ago. :-(
Sheeeeeeee-it.......GFS has swallowed the blue pill and gone back to a westerly track .....as a low end cat 1 or more likely some kind of asymetrical hybrid low.
Surf was a punchy 3-4ft at Australias most easterly point today......just felt like a bog standard tradewind swell to be honest.
I'm dreading a re-curve and coastal crossing due to the prevalence of onshore gales and bank-busting storm surf.
Fuck-off Freda and stay wide......
this may pan out the way ponch wrote 2 days ago
Yep, completely agree Steve, this morning was just bog standard tradewind swell.
Geezus, this cyclone is doing the swell models head in. Peak of the swell has been shifted again to late Wednesday afternoon now, so I wouldn't be expecting too much tomorrow morning by the looks of it.
Latest EC just has Freda doing a little dosey doe around New Cal, before being whisked away to the SE.
So again GFS just seems to be playing catch up to where EC was a few days ago IMO.
Sorry Don, but the peak can't have changed around over the last 18 hours as the swell's already been generated. It will occur tomorrow morning and unfortunately I don't think it will be as big as I forecast on Monday. Bit of a let down but really tricky to forecast.
Geez those cyclone's are unpredictable beasts! This thread has been so entertaining I nearly need popcorn to eat while I'm trying to follow the twists and turns of it's erratic life story! Can't blame the Goldy surfers for frothing so hard after such a shitty spring though.
Meanwhile I'm contemplating giving my 7'4" a run at 10 foot Daly's this weekend.....
Very unpredictable but also intriguing and very interesting.
Here's a great video explaining why the remnants of Freda is almost certainly going to retrograde back to the west and into Qld after meandering around New Caledonia.
Go to the 8:50 mark, great stuff!
Great wrap by cyclonechasers.com. Do you think the GFS has finally got the forecast track right now?? Here at Crescent head there are some 2 footers rolling through the point on dark.
Funny how we are frothing over a possible 6 foot swell and yorkesurfer is going to get a standard 10 foot day in SA. You guys had a great 2012 looks like it is continuing in the new year!
2012 was a vintage year for us mick no doubt! And we do get more than our fair share of swell down here in SA.
But when those point breaks in Nth NSW and SE Qld turn on in a cyclone they are unbelievable and well worthy of completely frothing over! I still think the longest and most perfect tubes I've had in my life have been in those conditions up there. I hope one day I can be lucky enough to score it like that again!!
Great link Craig. Looking forward to seeing the forecast update. Local winds on the mid north coast should be ok for the first half of the retrograde I'm hoping.
A very undistinguished 3ft or so here this morning......you'd be a brave man to stand in front of it and call it a cyclone swell.
I totally agree with Poncholarpez...the SSE movement of the system was the main problem. This meant in practice that the (limited) winds in the fetch were off-axis and moving obliquely to the rays in the circle paths of our swell window.
That seems to be a crucial feature for swell generation in these small, free-standing systems.
Evan was a prime example. Despite his distance from the coast, the fact he tracked straight back at us with winds aligned along the circle path meant he could generate a proper groundswell.
Anyway, seems we all need now to prep for the recurve.
Well what a total let down! I don't think the track was that unfavourable at all, the system was moving slowly south-southeast while only shifting a couple of degrees in longitude.
Compare this to say Evan which moved south towards New Zealand at a far greater rate and continued to pump out east swell towards us for days.
All eyes are now on the swing back in from the east..
There must be smoke coming out of some of those cray super-computers from the amount of re-calculations over the last week. Can't recall a system that so befuddled the models like that.
But there may be something cooking from the south for the wave loving new south welshmen. Hopefully this is a more bog standard arrangement that the models can handle.
Craig, the peak will occur late this afternoon (SE Qld) with a very brief pulse of inconsistent 4-5ft E/NE groundswell, before waning back to an inconsistent 3-4ft come Thursday morning. The issue will now be that the NE facing beaches will be blown out when this 4-5ft NE groundswell arrives late this afternoon, so it will be very diificult to confirm my predictions above.
And I can confirm Steve's observations this morning. More bog standard 3ft tradewind swell (with a touch more power than yesterday as the swell was more organised and not as raw), but bugger me it was fun surfing glassy lefthand barrels with just me and 2 mates!!!
Don, I disagree. As much as I wish it weren't the case, IMO there is absolutely zero cyclone swell in the water right now, which is supported by observations (including your own). And I can't see there being a peak this afternoon either.
Buoy data at the Brisbane buoy is showing Tp of just 9-10 seconds, and Hsig have been falling steadily since the evening of Dec 30th (when local winds were at a peak as well). Based on a standard nonogram, these periods equate to around 25-30kts over three days (or more), which is what the trades have been achieving (and with the trade belt just north of the Gold/Sunny Coast, swell direction at the coast is slightly NE of E as the swell spreads back).
From the various buoy observations and surf reports, I reckon surf size peaked yesterday - being mainly trade swell - with a very faint signal from the cyclone yesterday morning at 13 seconds (probably unidentifiable in the water). We're now 30 hours past the so-called 'leading edge' (if you can call it that!) so I just can't see a yet-to-appear kick in size with the existing cyclone signal being so faint.
As for the reasons for this non-event: as Craig said, I don't think the track was a major issue, because the forward speed was quite slow (a S/SW track would have been better, but may not have guaranteed a great deal more size, due to the large distance).
More simply, I think the models poorly forecast the wind field around the cyclone, which - in the absence of anything else - is what we used as the foundation to our forecasts. GFS in particular initially favoured a very broad area of gales on its NE flank, aimed perfectly towards SE Qld.
What eventuated was a uneven spread of maximum wind strengths, most of which were concentrated in quadrants aimed away from the SE Qld coast. ASCAT/OSCAT confirmed most of this on Sun/Mon, as you picked up on (I was flat out at the time, and was unable to post). Analysing the scatterometer data shows that there was very little core fetch aimed towards SE Qld at all.
I think our expectations for a significant event were also heightened by the forecast duration of TC Freda - that is, it was expected to remain very strong for four or five days at least, in a generally favourable track towards the region, along with a building ridge to the south (adding additional trade swell). But the flukey model output - as well as the wild extratropical developments towards the end of the cycle - took our focus away from the fundamental analysis of the cyclone as it was developing.
I'm pretty bummed it didn't turn out as panned.. but that's just the way it goes. From a forecasting perspective the last four weeks have been a great learning cycle (with both Evan and Freda) so I'm really looking forward to the challenges of the next event!
you dont think it was moving too slow for the direction it was travelling in?? i.e. fast enough to move away from the fetch area it was generating but not fast enough to stay over the already produced swell??
Not at all Pete, the slower a storm moves, the larger the sea state becomes due to the strong winds acting on an already active area of swell. Ben's detailed our thoughts on why the swell came in well under size and it looks to be mainly due to the strongest winds around Freda not being aimed favourably towards us.
poncholarpez, I don't think we'll ever know. We can model all of these kinds of outcomes but sometimes they just don't happen as the models expect. That's the beauty of weather forecasting (and in particular, surf forecasting).
As for whether Freda was "not fast enough to stay over the already produced swell" - yeah, well it wasn't fast enough to create a 'captured fetch', if that's what you're referring to.
But you don't need a captured fetch to create a decent swell. TC Evan was a weaker system than TC Freda (in our swell window, anyway), located much further away from the Australian coast than Freda, and without a major supporting ridge to the south - but it still generated some solid waves at various East Coast swell magnets.
oh well, bring on the next one, lol. MJO time soon.
Byron buoy is showing something interesting.
Yeah, but four buoys in SE Qld aren't showing anything at all. A single spike in period isn't much - the Brisbane buoy had the same 'interesting' spike yesterday morning, which didn't amount to much on the beach.
Freda means peaceful.
We need to name the next one psycho bitch.
Tweed buoy now picking it (Tpeak) up also.
I'm watching our surfcams and it still looks like a 3ft+ trade swell to me.
Brief spikes of Tp mean nothing unless they're part of a swell cycle. As an example, the Crowdy Head buoy (nearest to Port Maquarie) picked up some erratic 12/13 second Tp readings over the last 24 hours, but there's been little if any translation on the beach.
http://mhl.nsw.gov.au/htbin/wave_data_plot.com?Location=Crowdy_Head
I hear (and understand) what ya saying Ben. Let's just see what pans out late this afternoon/evening and into tomorrow morning. For me, it's at least some sign of potentially new swell in the water....particularly looking at the Byron buoy with Tsig jumping considerably.
If the swell was waning, the Byron buoy wouldn't be showing a jump in Tsig IMO.
Just watched the Noosa cam and I saw a 4-5 wave set that was lined up looking like a definite groundswell. Certainly nothing huge.....around 2ft/2ft+ at national parks (I think that's the break furtherest out that you can see on the cam) from what I could see, but definitely long lined groundswell.
You cant cherry pick the data though Don. There's been no spike at the Mooloolaba, Brisbane or Gold Coast buoys, and the Tweed's Tp jump of 2-3 seconds appears to be an anomaly (and all of these buoys are equally exposed to E/NE swells). Even if the Byron buoy sustains a few more readings, 1/5 buoys is far from conclusive IMO.
As for the increase in Tsig data at Byron - it's only one data reading at this point in time - but could possibly be explained by the relaxing of local wind speeds this afternoon. Also, Tsig will usually (but not always) be influenced by Tp, so we really need to see a trend set in place for a few hours to be convinced that there is in fact a 'new' swell in the water.
Lastly - you mentioned seeing 'definite groundswell' on the Noosa cam this afternoon - this is the case even under trade swells, as long as they are well established. We had a small gallery from Jack Dekort on this very topic last week (check the sixth image):
http://www.swellnet.com.au/galleries/3361-heaven-before-evan
Thats correct, you can't distinguish between a fully developed trade swell and cyclone swell of similar size by watching a surf cam.
I observed and surfed an outer sandbar off Cape Byron from 4pm until 7pm this evening. Completely open to all prevailing swell from the northern and eastern quadrant. Surf was in the 3-4ft range but there were definitely bigger bomb sets in the (shudder) 5ft range ( I can't call 'em 6ft) that seemed to be of an order of magnitude stronger than the prevailing trade swell.
Right on dark seemed to be smaller at the Ox.
Was up Ranibow/DI from mid morn of the 1st to mid arvo of the 2nd. I don't trust my scaling up above 4ft(head high), especially with surferless washthroughs, but for what it's worth, a very inconsistent 6ft max both days.
As for 'power', I don't really trust that either because you can pop up after a wave and find the bloke right next to you was drilled by it. I got knocked around duck diving some 3ft walls and popped right up behind some 5ft walls so all in all, whatever.
Direction & straightness: NE yeah, but not a degree under 45 that's for sure. No long, ruler edges or stacked horizons either.
AUSWAVE has come up trumps for now?
Why no mention of altimetry? Not so useful as it only shows height not direction, especially for such a narrow and short lived swell?
Is it assumed that heights and periods are quoted at H&T sig, not max & 1? Isn't the later more helpful? Also, I think that quoting individual numbers is next to useless anyway, as they're constantly up and down. Need to look at trends, like Ben said.
As for Byz peaking recently, check the direction. We did just have a winter style setup swing by The Tasman.
Cheers to the young Gympie crew who picked me up while hitchiking down the beach; screw the fat arsed Brisso pricks with their wound up tinted windows and jetskis, I could still see their spare seats!
Would love to see some photos mitchvg. Got any?
Re: AUSWAVE - they use the same swell model available on most other websites, but their model is instead driven by ACCESS winds. I didn't check the output at the time so I'm not sure what it was saying but will make a note to do so in the future.
You said "why no mention of altimetry?" IMO, it has limited value for surf forecasting; I've never really used altimetry data as a part of my forecasting routine. It can pick up Hsig heights but can't seperate swell trains - so in the case of a cyclone swell it can't do much more than confirm the model output for Hsig (which I don't use anyway). As an example, this means that there's no way to know what percentage of trade and cyclone swell is contained in the 3m data recorded in the Coral Sea. But I can see it being slightly more useful for Southern Ocean weather systems (ie broad frontal passages).
Re: heights/periods - I find they all have different uses. As a general rule, trends are best observed via HSig/Tsig data however Tp is great for identifying leading edges. I don't use Hmax for surf forecasting purposes.
Well played here gents. Great thread.
Has anyone else seen a cyclone so completely flummox the models for so long?
New Cal getting quite hammered at the moment by gales.......wonder if JTWC downgraded a tad early. Still looks like quite an organised system.
And now it looks like there'll be no recurve at all. I'm totally over Freda!
I don't know what's more bizzare - GFS wiping Freda clean off the map, or EC having Freda doing circle work in the Far SW Pacific.
What a truly astonishing week it's been for the computer models.
Glad I didn't bring my camera, as my back is sore enough as it is from hiking with 2 boards, tins of spag, etc.
Well it's good to see the BoM can sort of override the system, but as you suggested, not everyone will have surfing at front of mind. The interactive map pretty much just had about 2 - 2.5m max of primary swell, E'ly, 13 sec max and constantly overrun by wind waves nth of about Moreton Is.
ACCESS has followed closely to EC as far as I remember, and strangely their http://www.bom.gov.au/marine/wind.shtml forecast model is...
- "The numerical computer models used to create the wind forecasts are:
Day 1 and Day 2 wind forecasts: Based on data from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology ACCESS high resolution model on a 10 kilometre grid.
Days 3 - 7 wind forecasts: Based on data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast model on a 55 kilometre grid."
Lastly, I'm surprised by you not using Hmax. I have a pre surf check rule of thumb that if the southport bouy is less than 12/13sec (Tp), the Hmax (m) is the rough surf height in feet. e.g at 1pm on the 3rd I'm guessing TOS would be 3-4ft. Then I would look at the Point Lookout bouy, and if I saw 4m(Hmax) at 15sec(Tp) from SSSSE for example, I wouldn't consider bringing anything shorter than my 6'3".
Mitch, they can override the text forecasts (ie "South East Queensland Coastal Waters Boating Weather") but can't override the computer generated charts - there's no practical way to do so. The maps are just outputing whatever the model says is happening.
I do recall a quick glance at ACCESS early in the forecast period and it never really developed the cyclone at all, just maintained a broad belt of trades. This fits in with with what you say the ACCESS-generated swell carts ended up predicting, however missing the core elements of the cyclone isn't a good thing either (for other weather forecast products).
Re: BOM wind model - that's actually a different product. Their wave model only uses ACCESS data, not EC. The wind forecasts are produced separately.
going to have to concede thats shes off to the SE. was 50/50 there for a while but i think the fact that she has stayed so strong will be our loss in the end. What a huge letdown this event was.
wow. this is bullshit.
this last 3 months or so have been the worst for the charts showing swell is likely to be produced (for NSW) and then disappearing just as the subject period arrives.
worst ever.
So funny, latest charts bare almost no resemblance to anything predicted in the last week or so.
Hard to fathom.
So Nickg, what did you make of a couple of mornings ago. I got up expecting 1-2 foot at best and it was 3-4 in the a.m. at a known south swell magnet on the central coast, and a friend who was up early declared it as 5' in the dawn session.
He also was expecting nothing, and is an avid chart reader.
Does your head in sometimes.
FWIW, winds here have shown very little resemblance to expectations from weather charts, and seemingly large variability in direction over an area covering 2 or 3 kilometres. I would say it was some local topography etc causing it, but I have been coming here for 18 years and can't remember it being so unreadable.
In the meantime, my wife has been reading an 'end of days' sci-fi novel which included reference to winds blowing one way and flags being blown in the opposite direction, as a sign of the end times.
Maybe the mayans were a few weeks out. :-)
Thermalben could you please explain what sort of 'event' is actually needed to get a plane in the air to do a flyover. For a laymen like myself it seems logical satilites are useless at knowing real windspeed. Is it simply a case of budget and no 'real' need other than a few private boats getting into shit. Like does a cyclone have to pose a ' clear and present' danger for that to happen, while we rely on this computer model bullshit. Is the only thing the b.o.m do is to release balloons from manned weather stations? What about yasi? The best predicted cyclone i can remember, is simply a case they weren't relying on the models but doing real recon? If A cyclone is thus named and subsequently in Fiji waters is it simply a matter of 'not our' responsibility, thus nothing but computer modelling could ever take place which is what happened with both cyclones so far. I can't remember any two cyclone track's being as bad as this and it's seems a logical conclusion to me both were born in Fiji airspace.
B.T.W speaking of satellites has anybody else noticed that the google one sunshine coast was taken on what appears to be decent swell. would it be safe to assume this is a winter south east swell? I want to move to the sunshine coast, preferably close to a half decent bank, i know they change and all, but from maroochy to sunshine, concentration of surfers can clearly be seen and of most interest to me is the break near marcoola. was this a freak day, or does this retirement hotspot actually offer any consistency considering rent is half cheap. This is real shit to me as it will influence my decision on where i should live. i plan on studying social work which I have been doing for the past two years. Throwing up between the goldy and sunshine coast (chalk and cheese) lived in mackay for the last two years. The only thing which puts goldy into the frame is south straddie. That and the crime rate, which offers ample opportunity to people watch being, well, people! Sorry to hijack the thread, but looking at the models it seems like you guys can expect a decent tradewind swell 'event' and mackay should have a 1 foot wave for me to go back to. Thankfull for small mercies. And while I'm on a horse I'm so tired of 'professional' surfers thinking they're like all mick fanning here and it's even worse in mackay. Seriously i'm not the shit, I'm intermediate, it isn't man against man, I'm riding a board that's 19 inches wide okay. I'm not cool, never going to be, I don't say sick a lot nor do i have any tattoo's. I don't know why it is i don't paddle for waves I can clearly see the person on the inside of me is going to miss, but if I start doing that I won't be able to look at myself in the mirror and say the man i am is any man at all. Thank you town with real surf. I will be back. I will be back as me. never the local. always the visitor. clearly the optimist?!! I'll be back on the swellnet forum when i live in a place with waves. much respect chart watchers!
DD05, I think you've got your wires crossed on a few things.
Firstly, "what sort of 'event' is actually needed to get a plane in the air to do a flyover" - are you referring to the Hurricane Hunter planes they use in the states? As far as I know we don't have anything similar in Australia.
In any case, weather reconnaissance flights would be a waste of time for our purposes as they'd collect data over single flight tracks, where as we're interested in a much broader spatial coverage of data. Also, one-off flights would be equally useless - we need regular updates on how the weather system is evolving, with the data preferably recorded as close to model initialisation times as much as possible. So, either two or four times per day, every day. The available scatterometry offers us a reasonable coverage of global data two times per day, which is pretty good (although there are other factors which sometimes limits the usefulness of this data, but that's another discussion).
As for how the models handled TC Freda - it's got nothing to do with where the system evolved. It is a well known fact (amongst the weather forecasting community) that computer models frequently struggle with tropical cyclones, because of the wide range in atmospheric variables exhibited across very small areas. In order for computer models to provide a useful service, their resolution is limited - ie is more coarse - in order to reduce the computational requirements.
This is usually adequate for most weather systems however complex systems like tropical cyclones are often poorly initialised by the models. Therefore, any tiny errors that creep into the initialisation are magnified exponentially with each successive forecast time step. Which results in a poor forecast.
Computer models have the ability to provide more 'accurate' forecasts but this requires a lot more computational time. Look at it this way - a 95% accurate model forecast is pretty useless if you receive the data two days after initialisation. However, a 75% accurate model forecast received five hours after initialisation is much more useful for forecasting purposes (BTW, I've just pulled those numbers out of the air, to illustrate the example).
batfink_and_karate,
some of those forecast south swells have been sliding straight on past Sydney and hitting just North of us (I hear). I'm envious.
depending upon how you define "The End of the World" the Mayans may have totally called it. typical.
batfink
a few days ago I scored head high + for the dawny at narrabeen, whilst the reports and forecasts said it was only meant to be 2ft from the south. it was NE in direction.
later on it had dropped back down in size.
go figure
these past 2 weeks the forecast changes significantly each time its updated.
makes it interesting, but hard if you a planning a road trip.
nickg, lost climber, yeah I think one of those swells that might miss Sydney hit where I am, Central Coast, at a point that sticks out quite a bit (should tell you where, if you know the area)
Lostc, the one I am talking about was surely from the south, but I'm not so sure of my sense of direction after the past few days. Fair bit of east in that, but definitely south (here at least) Then again, local bathymetry can turn swell around a bit. I would imagine North narra to be open to swells with a bit of south in them.
I saw it later in the morning, 3 foot and a bit more, was still well over head high around 8'ish, and my mate was saying it was quite a bit bigger at the dawny.
No idea where that came from.
Some locations you can sit on the carpark watching flatnes at your local as a swell marches up or down the coast, and you sit there wondering where it is hitting.
Usually not wherever I am.
Still a bit of pulse today in the close to 3' range, very defined sets at longer intervals in between a weaker smaller wind swell.
Very hard to plan a road trip around at the moment, or even whether it's worth getting up for the early.
What remains of TC Freda is parked of the NE coast of NZ pulsing 4m peak swells. A SW changeon its way in morning meaning epic Kiwi waves!!
There were a few long-lined sets hitting Manly late yesterday afternoon. They were very inconsistent and not much bigger than the NE windswell on offer being just 2 foot max. But they were well defined and closing out bank to bank. No way it was windswell, it had to be the remnants of that fickle bitch, Freda.
Cheers TB, duly noted.
DD05, have a look through these facebook timelines...
https://www.facebook.com/liquidmovement
https://www.facebook.com/sunshinecoast.surfimagery
https://www.facebook.com/jaegantaylorphotography
Stunet, I thought the same looking at the swell hitting the beaches today and the last few days.
Even this morning, a bommie that is open to the north east would light up with a little 2 footer. Sure, could be windswell, but I counted a couple of occasions with 6 wave sets. hhhmmmmm, I'm thinking.
Had a fun surf today. Found a nice offshore fast breaking lefts and rights. 2' max, but by golly, the bigger ones came in 3's and were long lined buggers.
I was wondering what Craig and others thought about it? My summation, it was still some leftovers from TC F, one way or the other.
Saw on Saturday to Monday 1.5ft long period sets down this way.Noticed they were about ten minutes apart in sets of 5 waves sometimes 6.On Sat it looked very n/ne in direction which I have not seen that often.
Monday morning I was watching sunrise and the weather was being done from Stanwell Tops. Looking down you could see the predominate SE wind swell and then occasionally 3 -4 lines of defined ground swell from E-NE (?)would come through.
Up here there has been swell running for well over a week now, nothing of any great size, but consistant and certainly surfable and its got me stumped as to where its from. At first I knew it was from Freda but the direction and size has stayed pretty consistant.
Yeah it's all still from Freda and its extra-tropical transition. Freda actually deepened significantly over the back of New Zealand on the weekend.
This produced pumping waves on the Coromandel Peninsula (North Island NZ) but also produced late yesterday's and today's 14-15 second E/SE groundswell across the Gold/North Coast.
While Freda under performed initially, it's longevity through the Gold Coast's and North Coast's swell window as it slowly meandered towards New Zealand has resulted in quite a long lived and fun swell event.
And we now welcome Tropical Cyclone Narelle which was named overnight, positioned south-west of Sumba.
Narelle is currently a Category 2 system but is forecast to reach Category 4 status in the next couple of days while tracking south-southwest towards Exmouth.
Most forecast models have Narelle rounding Exmouth on the seaward side and heading south down the WA coast but they diverge on its strength and track here on in.
Yeah, I'll see if I can punch out a quick article today on Narelle. I intended on doing one on Mitchell but it was downgraded shortly after forming! Didn't end up doing much anyway.
Narelle on the other hand.. lot of potential for a decent NW swell (coupled in with the arrival of a concurrent large SW swell.. interesting times ahead in WA!).