Remarkably, mid period energy from the E, caused by a persistent long E’ly tradewind fetch in the South Pacific, will still be chugging away in the background with both size and consistency slowly easing back. If you've missed out, might be time to down tools tomorrow to grab a few before it's all gone.
Primary tabs
To the East a persistent, broad E’ly tradewind fetch is slowly contracting Eastwards, although windspeeds have been increased along the northern flank of a large high by an area of low pressure. This system has already produced 3 days of surf and is expected to supply a slowly diminishing signal until Thurs/Fri, from a peak today.
An incredibly strong high pressure cell (1043 hPa) near New Zealand is driving an impressive tradewind fetch through the North Island/South Pacific corridor , as well as local onshore winds through the Coral and Northern Tasman sea.
On the New Zealand side of the basin, troughy remnants of last week’s low pressure cell invigorate a long, broad tradewind fetch extending from the South Pacific into the Northern Tasman and Coral Sea. While this fetch looks a little less impressive and more mobile than it did on Wed it’s still going to be a solid swell producer for the sub-tropical East Coast.
This incredible high pressure system, 1036 and 1042 hPa, then begins to extend a long, broad fetch of SE/ESE winds adjacent to the North Island and extending through the South Pacific and into the Northern Tasman and Southern Coral Sea. This portends another extended E’ly swell event, more focussed on NENSW and SEQLD but with enough width in the fetch to ensure the entire NSW coast gets sprayed with swell from the Eastern Quadrant.
An extended E’ly pattern then sets up, as high pressure straddles New Zealand and the troughy remnants of the Tasman low squeeze pressure gradients along a long, broad fetch extending through the South Pacific adjacent to the North Island and extending into the Coral Sea. Models show this fetch then further retrograding back towards the Australian East Coast to end the working week.
This S swell will combine with the long range E swell showing 3-4ft sets, potentially offering up some A frame beachies if you can crack the code. Friday looks well worth a paddle or two.
Thursday looks the day for surf to thicken up as the deeper, better aligned SSE/SE fetch generates strong SSE swell for the NE/NSW Coast with a smaller amount getting into SEQLD. With the low moving away local pressure gradients will ease and lighter SW winds will see a day of cleaner, pumping waves.
An upper cold pool is expected to spawn a cut-off low East of Sydney during Tuesday. This is a different beast to the more polar lows that have been traversing the Tasman in the last few weeks, a classic “onion ring” system which occupies the majority of the central/southern Tasman for the majority of next week
A long, broad fetch of ESE/SE winds develops along the northern flank of the high, filling out that very favourable South Pacific corridor between the North Island and New Caledonia with strong winds to low end gales.