Looking East

Our run of active monsoon and cyclone development just keeps going with the arrival of TC Funa in our eastern swell window. Its movement over the next couple of days should see Funa hovering in perfect position to send us a good run of ESE swell. A southerly change coming off the Tasman low should fill the rest of the equation for cranking waves

No barrels for Steve

The surf is horrendous again today, onshore winds and poo brown filthy flood water runoff. It might be a while til we can get out there again. This is as close as I am gonna get at the moment. How good is this in the barrel footage?

Lovely weather isn't it ?

So we just had the cyclone that was not a cyclone. All the sand gone and not really any rideable waves. The Richmond River has just experienced our biggest flood since '74 and in some areas even bigger. Water restrictions are off with the latest from Rous Water saying "Rocky Creek dam level on Jan 9 2008 is 101.46%"
Weatherzone has this synoptic forecast chart for Saturday. I reckon that looks a lot like the pattern that we were just subjected to, if not slightly weaker


This was todays surf report from Coastalwatch

"Messy sloppy 2ft waves early this morning. OK for longboards and groms. Dirty water that is unsafe to surf near Richmond river. Reports of a bull along with heaps of other debris washing out the river and out into the surf."

That sounds inviting eh ?

This is the report from Swellnet today

"Onshore conditions with brown water and overcast skies isn't exactly picture postcard stuff. The positioning of a low off the Queensland coast and moving in towards Fraser Island is far from ideal for Ballina Shire, meaning an extended run of onshore winds. Why are those lows getting "stuck" there? Seems like there is an invisible magnet off Fraser Island holding them there. Anyway while that pattern persists unless you are fond of surfing onshores with muddy water then Byron is your best bet."

I have had three surfs in three weeks and I can't see myself getting out there in a hurry.Check the footage below for a reminder of the way it can be around here.

Summer has teeth

Well what a difference a couple of weeks makes. Here I was whinging about swell and then it all started cranking up. At the moment we have a monsoonal low system that is trying to fire up off the central coast of Queensland. All of the forecasts have changed radically every 6 hours over the last 18 hours. At this stage we are looking at a low pressure system that may or may not develop into a cyclone. It may or may not turn SE or SW and smash the coast but it will definitely intensify over the next couple of days. If it gets really big the banks out the point are gone for sure, but we may get 1-2 days of big goodness if the wind behaves itself. Most websites are calling for something between 10-20 feet for about the next 5 days with southerly winds. It is a matter of time right now, what have you got up your sleeve Huey ?

Summer sucks

North Wall winter '07 Le-Ba contest. Summer sucks. We have a 4' East swell today and southerly winds but this is the first time in ages that all the conditions have coincided. A brief respite from the northerly wind chop. Maybe this year the BOM warnings of a nasty cyclone season might actually happen.