thinking out loud

Hello Friends,

I’m always pleased to report that I’ve been unduly pessimistic about the surf prospects. And so it is this morning when I expected we’d be getting toward flatness territory. But instead, there are light NW winds and the SSE swell has actually improved very slightly in size and on the average period setting.

Down at Dee Why this is showing up as smallish waves (waist to chest high) sets at the point, and bigger (chest to head high plus) but mainly shutting down sets at the southern end of the beach. I reckon if you walked up toward No Man’s, there’d be a bit more size.

At the last data dump from the Sydney MHL buoy, average size at sea was just under the 2 metre mark and the average period is around 11 seconds. It looks as though there is some very long period component in the mix as well. 16 sec on the peaks according to the data. I’m a bit wary of those numbers though because they aren’t replicated down at Port Kembla. But, there are some spikes showing at Eden and Batemans Bay, so… I’m leaning toward it being real rather than the result of some idiot tying up a boat to the bouy.

The Bureau says we’re in for NW-N winds of 10-15kts in the morning, increasing to 15-20 in the afternoon.

The models continue to call for a couple days of near flatness from tomorrow, but late Wednesday night, the south swell should start up again.

Go well with your day!

Hello Friends,

The phone beeped me awake this morning with an sms from reporter Robbo telling me we still have swell. Wiped blear away, clambered up the ladder to the crows nest for my daily pics. Yep, as R. said, we got swell. There are a couple issues however.

First, there is the little matter of the howling wind. It’s blasting along at 20-30 kts from the WNW. So, the direction’s fine, but the speed setting is, shall we say, a touch enthusiastic Huey.

The second issue is our swell. The size at sea has dropped a touch and is now close to the metre mark. That would be very small if all we had to play with was the current 9 second period. Happily there are still some 14 sec sets in the mix. And therein lies the problem. It’s setty and I reckon as the day proceeds, the lulls will get longer. (When the sets come in, they are creating faces into the head high range on the bigger ones.)

The Bureau’s wind call is as follows: “NW 20/25 knots, increasing to 25/33 knots early, ahead of a W/SW change 25/33 knots during the afternoon. Sea: rising to 2.5 to 3.5 metres. Swell: S 2 to 3 metres. Dangerous surf conditions.”

Outlook is for the swell to hang in there at more or less these settings for another couple days, but to gradually get smaller through he weekend.

A bit of a head’s up for you all… at some point today I’m going to do a live vidcast from the beach. I’ll post an update in the report slot 10-15mins before I go on.

Have yourself a top old day and get a few if you can!

Hello Friends,

Nippy again this morning, but happily there’s a reason to brave the burrrr. At Dee Why, the best waves are up the beach toward Long Reef, but there are a few to be had at the point as well. Size is around the chest to shoulder high mark on the bigger ones at the beach and knee to chest high at the point.

And the good news is that it’s set to possibly improve… dig this from the Bureau’s summary:

A long period southerly swell will develop from the south today in the wake of the Tasman Sea front, and whilst most of the swell will move out into the Tasman Sea there may be sufficient strength in the waves about southern facing beaches to result in some dangerous surf conditions.

As I write this, there is no sign of a change to the period settings for Sydney. Overnight, it dropped back from about 9 to 8 seconds. The size is still around the 1.5 metre mark and the direction is SSE. However, at around midnight, the Eden buoy popped up from an average of 9 to nearly 12 seconds, and the size went from under two to close to 3 metres. That’d be a thumping swell if it holds at those settings up here. Batemans Bay started ramping up around 6 hours later, so, I’d say that swell is  coming our way. My guess is that if we get anything, we should see obvious signs by mid-afternoon, but there could be forerunners arriving late this morning.

I worked up a forecast last night, but I might re-jig it this morning and post it later.

We have a technical issue this morning with our daily pic gallery, so if you’d like to see my pics, you’ll need to jump over to my blog. Naturally our tech guru is frantic at work, so not sure how quickly he’ll be able to get onto it…

Have yourself a top old day and check back because I plan to put up at least one update re this (potential) swell.