How's those four unridden waves at First Point Noosa!

Also, interesting to read back through my FC Notes, and Craig's articles prior to this E'ly event, so see how we discussed its potential evolution:

Thursday 14th Jan (over 3 weeks ago): “Over the coming fortnight this strengthening MJO signal is forecast to move east towards us and this will bring that injection of tropical instability to the region. With this we'll hopefully see the trade-pattern kick back in late in the month/February and depending on the strength of the MJO, likely a cyclone or two.”

Friday 22nd (2 weeks ago): “Long term maintains a whole stack of near-stationary swell sources in the Northern Tasman Sea, lower Coral Sea and South Pacific, so it looks like we’ll be back to the easterly swell machine for quite a few weeks. 

Monday 25th (10 days ago): The tropics are about to fire up under the passage of an MJO phase, and we’ve got no end in sight for the easterly swell machine. This pattern is expected supercharge the trade flow across the Northern Tasman Sea and South Pacific from this weekend onwards (see below), and there’s a distinct possibility that one or two Tropical Cyclones may drop south from the Fijian region, adding even more energy into the mix. 

Yesterday was hard work.

Up early for a couple of hours work as per usual, managed to sneak out the door at half seven, spent twenty minutes checking the local spot, but nothing really happening, a little too big and slightly wobbly.

Needed to make a quick decision as there was a pile of work waiting in the office. Only options were a dash to the Superbank or the Pass. Chose the latter, so headed out to the M1.

No further than 100m off the downramp, and the phone rang - it's my wife. 

"Seems to be one school shoe left in the back of your car."

Shit.

Had to turn the car around.

But, the M1 doesn't allow U-eys, so the only option was to drive down to the next overpass turn off - thirteen kilometres away, a twenty six kilometre round trip. In actuality, pushing near 35 kays to drop off the offending footwear.

Made it home, checked the Pass cam and saw a steady stream of punters washed off the bank and down towards Main Beach, and decided that perhaps the building swell could overpower things in the short term - so decided to head back to the local. Surf was noticeably bigger and stronger than an hour earlier, couldn't see a single punter in the water. Another fifteen minutes wasted. So, I trudged into the office with my tail between the legs.

The rest of the morning was spent attempting to work, whilst our Cooly cams streamed HD on the big office TV screen, allowing for zero productivity. Could I swing an arvo surf? My wife had arranged to head out with some friends, and had given very strict instructions to be home by 6pm (an hour before I usually get home), but with the Tweed Coast maxed out, it was once again a choice between the Pass or Cooly.

Chose the latter, as I figured it was about time to renew my "why I never surf the Superbank" membership card anyway. Besides I was much more confident in a successful navigation of peak-time traffic on the Gold Coast than in Byron.

Jumped in the car, begin the dash north, and the phone rings. It's the car repair place - they want to pick up my car first thing Monday morning to fix the hail damage, it'll take two weeks.

Righto, I said, where do I get the hire car from? You'll have to call the insurer, they reply. 

So I place a call to the insurer as I draw closer to Cooly. Thirteen car-assisted teleprompts later, I'm concurrently pulling into the carpark and speaking to the call centre, who need thirty minutes of my time to finalise the hire car booking.

"Ah, I've gotta jump into a meeting. Can we do this later?"

"Call centre closes at 5pm, and we're not open over the weekend, so if you don't stay on the phone now, you won't have a car Monday".

Shit!

I persevere for ten minutes, waxing up and applying sunscreen as I shoulder-hold the phone and navigate their questions. Eventually they put me on hold to call the hire car joint, and I stare up the Superbank lineup, mindsurfing waves that are never without a few takers. The clock is ticking. I'm sweating in the Queensland sun.

Finally, after ten minutes of on-hold silence, I can't take it anymore. I'll deal with this on Monday morning. I gotta surf. I'll cycle to work.

Dash up the point, manage a dry-hair paddle out between lully sets, and to my great surprise, catch three decent waves in twenty minutes. Three more than most Superbank sessions in the last two decades. That's good enough for me. 

Manage to get in and make the hire car booking with ten minutes to spare.

Dunno when I'll next surf the Superbank. But gee, despite the crowd, it's so easy to see the attraction. There were some incredible waves. 

Glassy 6ft sets on the Tweed beaches. Was stoked enough just to punch through the bank and make it out. Sets were relentless.

Palm Beach buoy is showing a small pocket of long period energy at 17-18 seconds. Dominant energy still around 12 seconds though.

Tweed buoy now showing the new pulse but a quick evening check at the beach revealed very inconsistent set waves, didn't see anything notably bigger than the morning, one set the 6ft+ range otherwise rather slow. Will be interesting to see what the morning reveals.

Tweed buoy shows the expected final pulse arrived somewhere near dinnertime and peaked before midnight, before easing through the early hours of this morning. Because there was little wind locally (and thus negligible windswell contamination), we can use wave heights as a reliable trend proxy. Of course, spectral data is best.

Interestingly, Brisbane showed a broad peak from mid-morning onwards until early evening; Palm Beach showed a peak from early afternoon through mid-evening. Hsig was largest at Brisbane but only by a small amount.

Collectively, the buoy data shows that this final pulse of swell reached Brisbane first and then propagated southwards, which suggests an E/NE swell direction (though, the Brisbane buoy suffers the least from directional attenuation, and was almost dead east the whole time; Tweed and Palmy were E/NE prior to yesterday, but Saturday's pulse trended to the east).

Anyway, all useful hindcast info. Data below: Brisbane first, then Palmy, then Tweed.

Sunny Coast looking dreamy this AM.

Still some 6ft+ sets on the Tweed this morning. Managed to get out of their way, thankfully.

Seen turtles in the water almost every session over the last few weeks, which is, I'm told, one of the reasons why a tiger shark was patrolling the lineup this morning. Def an eerie vibe this morning though yesterday wasn't the same.