A long trough line extending from the Solomon Islands to the North Island spins off some small low pressure areas this week. Although not quite as spectacular as model runs suggested last week we’re still in for some fun NE swell this week with a juicier pulse expected late this weekend and into early next week.
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No great change to the weekend f/cast. A last pulse of longer period S swell generated by a final frontal progression and parent polar low transiting the Southern Ocean extends through Sat after filling in later Fri.
We’re in the middle of a winter-style pattern more common in August than November with a small low formed in along a front/trough line off the Gippsland Coast accelerating W’ly winds across most of the Eastern seaboard and Tasmania. A series of deeper fronts and lows are also transiting the lower Tasman as part of this cold outbreak.
All the action is in the Southern states right now, with a deep dual-centred low pressure gyre backed up by a strong high moving in from the Indian Ocean generating a powerful fetch which is just behind Tasmania with respect to the S swell window.
Into next week and a quick spike in NE windswell is expected Mon AM into Tues AM as another mid-latitude low approaches from the Bight and tightens the pressure gradient with the high in the Tasman.
Our Coral Sea low is now sitting just NE of Tasmania where it has merged with an exiting interior low to form a large, slow moving low-pressure gyre. Troughs are still snaking across Australia with a long trough line extending from the low pressure gyre through inland NSW up towards QLD and then into the Northern Territory, expected to move offshore through today. More embedded troughs and fronts approach the Island during the rest of this week, driving an unstable but basically NW’ly to W’ly biased wind flow across the f/cast region through the end of the week with easing swells.
A sub-tropical low which threatened SEQLD and NENSW over the weekend after it formed off the Capricorn coast is now steaming southwards at a fair clip, sliding along a high pressure ridge from a large (1035 hPa) high under Tasmania and dragging a strong fetch with it into the East Tas swell window.
Dynamic weekend f/cast ahead as a strong NE fetch builds a chunky windswell and a trough then brings an extended period of elevated wave heights from the SE to E.
The onshore flow is enhanced into a deeper tradewind flow up in the Coral Sea, which gets a boost from a trough of low pressure expected to form off the Central QLD Coast this weekend before drifting south as a surface low, bringing sizey swell from the East and dynamic weather. The trough of low-pressure from inland Victoria is expected to drift SE of Tasmania over the weekend with plenty of swell expected.
The end of the week will see another round of NE windswell develop, likely persisting over the weekend and into next week and blending with a developing Tradewind swell which is likely to send some small surf as far south as Tasmania.