Pretty typical late Summer pattern with a high in the Tasman and a maturing trade-wind flow in the Coral Sea, linked to an active monsoon trough with a small embedded low in the Coral Sea. There is a tropical cyclone in the Gulf of Carpentaria which formed over the weekend but this system is expected to track inland over the NT and Kimberley regions and not be a swell source for the East Coast.
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We’re between easterly pulses at the moment and the void will be temporarily filled by short/mid range energy trading today’s change.
We’ve still got a broad trade wind flow in the Coral Sea, extending out into the South Pacific and anchored head and tail by low pressure along the monsoon trough. That’s producing heavy swells in the sub-tropics (full blown Point surf equivalent to cyclone swells) although we’ll now see a slow easing trend into the end of the week.
Our current swell event is a byproduct of a strong trade flow through the Northern Tasman and lower Coral Sea, extending back into the South Pacific.
There was a nice, lingering tail to the S swell event but we’re now entrenched in a classic late Summer pattern with strong high pressure moving into the Tasman, setting up a downstream blocking pattern and very healthy tradewind fetch through the Coral Sea, extending E into the South Pacific and south into the Northern Tasman.
Classic late Summer pattern sets up this weekend with high pressure straddling New Zealand, a monsoon trough strung across Northern Australia extending into the South Pacific and a long, broad tradewind fetch between the two broadscale atmospheric features. The fetch is so broad and long and super-charged by low pressure embedded along the Northern Flank that we’ll see quite an energetic E’ly swell build over the weekend and extend into most of next week.
Current ASCAT (satellite windspeed) passes show a long fetch of severe gales in the southern swell window and wave buoys are all in an aggressive upwards curve as strong S swells build along the Southern NSW Coastline. We’ll see strong pulses of swell from this system until Thurs with easing leftovers until the end of the working week. To the north an extended trade-wind fetch is setting up through the week with another long playing E’ly swell event from that pattern, favouring the sub-tropics for size.
Models are holding steady on a winter calibre low tracking well to the south- south-east of Tasmania during Sun and traversing the far Southern Tasman through Mon. That will send a strong, long period S swell up the pipe.
Some quiet days then follow before a much more robust front and low enter the lower Tasman late in the weekend driving some sizey S swell up the coast.
The high cell is weak so we’re looking at a fairly uninspiring end to Summer, with some mid week NE windswell for Southern NSW and small background E swells for the sub-tropics. After that quiet spell extends into the start of Autumn a stronger frontal intrusion into the Tasman looks likely next week with some robust S swell accompanying it.