Central QLD Forecaster Notes by Steve Shearer (updated on Wed 17th Jan)

This weekend and next week (Jan17 -Jan26)

Central QLD: Small in the short run, probable cyclone in the Coral Sea next week

Tiny surf, possibly very large next week.

No change to the outlook. 

We’re midway through the current pattern with a high pressure cell near New Zealand, weakening trough in the Tasman and an approaching complex low SW of Tasmania. In the South Pacific we have a retrograding trough of low pressure along a tradewind band and finally,the Northern Australian Monsoon (NAM) is in full swing and a tropical low is expected to bud off the end of the monsoon trough into and over the weekend, with a reasonable likelihood of cyclogenesis into next week. Still plenty of uncertainty there over intensity, track and surf potential but at least some model runs are starting to look favourable, if large to very large swells are desirable from your perspective.

Very weak winds in the Coral Sea now and into the weekend so only tiny surf is expected until the weekend where some small E/SE swell from the South Pacific will supply slow 1-2ft surf at spots open to the swell window between the Breaksea soit and Capricorn Channel. Tiny to flat elsewhere.

Into the new week and  in the Coral Sea we’re likely to be tracking a tropical cyclone. While confidence is still low this far out, we’re starting to see some broad model agreement on a southwards track, with firming odds for a large swell for the sub-tropics by mid next week extending into the later part of next week.

Still a way to go but under some current model runs we can start to pencil in large swells from the E/NE-E- potentially up into the 8-10ft range by Wed/Thurs with S’ly quarter winds. 

 That’s still a long way off, so we’ll track model runs over the next 36 hrs and report back Fri.

Seeya then.