Central QLD Forecaster Notes by Steve Shearer (updated on Mon 5th Feb)

This weekend and next week (Feb5 -Feb16)

Central QLD: Lot’s of surf ahead as Coral Sea remains active

A temporary easing over the weekend and a nice rebuild today with plenty of fun waves ahead. 

Lots of fun waves today

We’ve got a complex pattern playing out at the moment with an inland trough/low approaching the coast, expected to bring a mid week S-S/SE change in conjunction with a new high moving in from the Bight. A semi-stationary area of low pressure in the Coral Sea is anchoring a broad trade-wind flow with an extended tradeswell event ahead. To the south, a severe gale to storm force fetch off the ice shelf from a retrograding low under the South Island sends a rare S/SE groundswell up the Pipe, with another strong front/low late this week into the weekend expected to generate another pulse of S’ly groundswell for South-eastern Australia.

Tradewinds around a semi-stationary low near New Caledonia bring plenty of fun waves this week

Trade-wind swells will perk up later today and into tomorrow, into a typical 2-3ft signal. This swell should persist at a pulsey 2-3ft through Wed into Thurs with a small increase Fri.

A reinforcing high strengthens the trade flow further south into Sun so we should see an increase in more E-E/SE swell through Sun, in the 2-3ft range.

A bit of model divergence for next week but the basic gist of the pattern is high pressure straddling the North Island, with a healthy trade-flow in the Southern Coral , Northern Tasman Seas and extending into the South Pacific. 

We should see continuing  E’ly swell from this trade-wind flow.

We may see an increase in that E’ly swell early next week, depending on the strength of the flow and the fate of a depression located near New Caledonia.

ECMWF suggests the low will drift back into the Coral Sea bringing an increased E swell signal for most of the East Coast while GFS has the low dissipating or drifting towards Vanuatu with a small E’ly tradewind signal.

Let’s see how it looks on Wed.