Holy Shit!! She’s back on line.

OUR MAGIC DAY: MAY 10, 2009

Boom. The forecast wheel’s spun again. May 10 now looks like the crazy swell monster we’d spotted two days back.

Deep low pressure over NZ; strong high pressure over Tasmania; mega-powerful south to south-east fetch focused on pretty much the entire Australian east coast south of the Goldie, with an additional flare toward the northern islands of the SW Pacific.

You know those winds are strong by the way that pressure gradient is stacked between the high and the low. You can get an idea of the size of the fetch by comparing it with the east coast. From southern Tassie to the Gold Coast is around 1000 nautical miles. That’s a lot of water for the wind to be working on.

With just a week to go before this whole situation becomes a reality, it’s kinda time to start looking at what the weather’s gonna be doing along the coast.

First: That massive wind band is going to push some cold air on to the east coast. It’s drawing off the surface water temps way south of NZ, which right now are around 10 degrees C. So you know wherever you go along that coast, you’re going to need a good wettie.

Second: The pressure gradient along the coast isn’t that heavy. So that tells us the coastal winds won’t be nearly as strong as the gales out to sea. Plus, since they’re not being driven so hard by the pressure gradient, they’ll tend to turn slightly away from the high. So it looks like the wind angle’s gonna be pretty much southerly – maybe a bit more SW to the north and possibly a bit SSE on the NSW far south coast.

Big SE groundswell and moderate south to SW winds. Pretty SICK … except if you look further north at the islands around New Caledonia (that weird little stick-like island off far north Qld) you’ll notice there’s almost no pressure gradient at all. And ‘cause this groundswell will easily travel the couple of thousand ks to their shores, they’re gonna get major swell with almost no wind.

Gonna have to think about that one.

By the way remember how Tahiddy was gonna get a hit from yesterday’s forecast? Well that ht’s vanished – but now, just south of Chopes, a wicked little cut-off low seems to be forming. Look the HELL out, WCT!

Click here for previous updates on this swell…