First up: swell. There won’t be any shortage of it this week, thanks to a broad ridge north of New Zealand. More in the Forecaster Notes.
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We’ve got building E’ly swells for SE Qld and Far Northern NSW, originating primarily from a broad, complex series of surface troughs across the lower Coral Sea. More in the Forecaster Notes.
The main synoptic features right now are two surface troughs, one off the Central Qld coast and the other off the Mid North Coast. More in the Forecaster Notes.
A reasonable ridge is building through the lower Coral Sea, and will extend out across the Northern Tasman Sea over the coming days. This will be a useful source of E’ly swell for most coasts. More in the Forecaster Notes.
The short term outlook is somewhat craptacular for a few regions over the next few days, but from Thursday onwards it’s starting to look pretty juicy everywhere. More in the Forecaster Notes.
If I were basing the outlook on model guidance alone, it'd be easy to assume that the peak of the swell had passed today and size would therefore ease steadily from tonight onwards. More in the Forecaster Notes.
Before we get into the cyclone swell outlook, there’s been a local synoptic developments in the models since Friday that will be our short term focus. More in the Forecaster Notes.
I’m normally quite skeptical about swell potential from tropical cyclones, and prefer to downplay surf prospects unless there’s a lot of supporting evidence elsewhere. In the case of Severe TC Yasa, there are actually quite a few positives but also a few negatives. More in the Forecaster Notes.
It's a very dynamic forecast, and all eyes are on Severe TC Yasa.
I suppose at this juncture we can talk in broad brushstrokes, because the state of the surf for the short term will be heavily dependent on just a couple of factors: (1) the state of the banks, following this scouring swell event, and (2) whether the modeled N/NE winds get up to strength. More in the Forecaster Notes.