Central QLD Forecaster Notes by Steve Shearer (issued on Wed 15th Feb)

This week and next week (Feb22-Mar 3)

Central QLD: Fun, small waves all week

Strong high pressure (1035 hPa) is now moving SE of Tasmania with an embedded trough along the advancing ridge ramping up wind speeds from the SSE-SE into the 20kts+ range. Conditions should settle as the high moves into the Tasman and weakens and the ridge relaxes through the end of the week. The high is augmenting an existing SE-ESE tradewind fetch through the Northern Tasman and Coral Seas and maintaining small E-SE swell.

In the short run and extending through this week the broad fetch of SE-ESE trades is holding a fun-sized 2ft of surf across the region with some bigger sets on favourable parts of the tide at more exposed breaks on the Burnett Coast. 

Into the weekend and large high pressure sits in the Tasman with constant SE-ESE winds in the Coral Sea maintaining fun, pulsey surf in the 1-2f range.

Wow, lots of action on the charts next week and lots of model divergence, as well as poor run to run consistency. Therefore, expect plenty of revisions on Fri.

GFS suggests a cyclone forming between Vanuatu and Fiji and quickly moving south into the South Pacific slot, squeezing onto a pre-existing tradewind fetch. Current modelling has this system tracking quite fast, suggesting a small increase in E/NE swell from the pre-existing trade fetch mid-week and a quick up and down pulse of E swell later next week, with very low confidence on size and timing.

EC suggests this tropical area of low pressure remains more broad and undefined, with moderate amounts of trade swell continuing to filter down from the Coral Sea.

More action seems baked into the medium term in the tropics as a cross-equatorial flow and a monsoon trough extending from the Arafura Sea out into the Coral Sea and South Pacific Convergence Zone spawn tropical depressions along the trough line. Stay tuned as we monitor these for surf potential into the first week of March. 

Check back Fri for the latest and a last fine-tune for the weekend.