Cylinders85, 1429510415
Great article Craig.
freeride76, 1429516754
what about this one Craig?
ECL or no?
Craig, 1429516931
This one for sure!
Wattamolla gusting 65kts (hurricane force), rain totals between 40-50mm already and we've got a large swell event across the coast.
garyg1412, 1429519790
There's another east coast that benefits from these types of systems as well stretching from Flinders Island in the north to as far as Schouten Island in the south. While mainland Australia is waiting for the carnage to die down us Eskimos down south are reaping the rewards of a perfect 4 foot 12 second north east swell fanned by prevailing westerly winds . Life's tough in the shadow of a good ECL!!!!
Craig, 1429578923
And here we have a clear example of the pumping clean surf north of the East Coast Low currently sitting across Southern NSW, and then the large stormy waves along with poor weather in Sydney..
North of the ECL..
South of the ECL..
freeride76, 1429580671
yep, she's a doozy.
robbo, 1429618677
Great article Craig, top ECL to base it on! The obs coming out of the system, esp the winds peaking out at Wattamolla for 30 plus hours straight are pretty incredible. There was one in July 2001 where similar winds sustained for as long at Montague Is, but they seem pretty rare. The sub tropical jet and the high sea temps also seem to be playing a role in keeping this one going.
the-u-turn, 1429665159
Excellent article. I enjoy Swellnet as much for the writing (and in this case ongoing learning) as the photos and forecasts. Many Thanks Craig (Stu & Ben).
Craig, 1429665480
Thanks everyone, we talk a lot about certain storms/weather events and phenomena in the office all the time and it's good to be able to share it.
bmod, 1429684304
Yep, a big event for sure: second biggest Hsig in Sydney (8.1m vs 8.4m in 1997), longest period with Hsig over 6m (30hrs vs 24hrs in 1997), and the largest single wave ever recorded in NSW (14.9m)
thermalben, 1429684674
Also the first major swell event in some time where the buoy comms have kept transmitting!
(sorry, had to add it in).
robbo, 1430049809
Looks like another ECL to form next weekend again off NSW coast, Aus, Euro and US models in pretty good agreement at this stage.
Craig, 1430095302
This one probably won't be classified as an ECL but more a Tasman Low.
Good to see though, these events are known to cluster as well. Ie when one ECL forms the likelihood of a second and third forming increases dramatically.
wellymon, 1430115613
"Professor Goodwin proposes splitting it down further into 4 different categories. "
Which are...!
udo, 1430115921
What were the buoy readings during that Syd - Hobart 1998 ..just curious ?
Blowin, 1430115944
Soft, Bee Stung, Semi and Cat can't scratch .
Craig, 1430116445
Welly, that would be..
1) Easterly trough lows (ETL): Events that track mostly east of the Great Dividing Range and in a southerly direction.
2) Southern secondary lows (SSL): Events that track mostly over the ocean and in a northerly direction.
3) Inland troughs (IT): Events that evolve mostly over land, west of the Great Dividing Range and north of 30degS.
4) Continental lows (CL): Events that evolve mostly over land, west of the Great Dividing Range and south of 30degS.
There is a 5th mention as well..
5) Extratropical cyclones (XTC): Differentiation be- tween canonical ETL events and those that evolve from tropical cyclones based on storm track trajec- tories is problematic, as both storm types evolve in a similar region and follow similar tracks. However, the BOM maintains a database of all tropical cyclone occurrences and tracks from 1900 to present (avail- able online at www.bom.gov.au). Events that evolved from storm systems included in this database are classified as XTC.
"Factors evaluated by the classification al- gorithm are the following: storm-track latitude, whether the storm evolved mostly over the land or the sea, whether it tracked north or south, and its orientation to Australia’s main topographic divide (i.e., the Great Dividing Range)."
From this interesting paper Large-Scale Influences on the Evolution of Winter Subtropical Maritime Cyclones Affecting Australia’s East Coast
robbo, 1430118390
Be interesting to see how it develops, reckon it looks ECLish with deepening off southern Qld coast Friday morning, slowly tracking down the NSW coast Saturday-Sunday. Either way looks wet, windy with plenty of swell somewhere again.
On the 98 Hobart, I can't recall if MHL Eden buoy was in place at that time. Waves were recorded at Kingfish B platform of around Sig Wx 6-7m, Max Wx 11-12m, but this site is about 100 miles upwind of the worst affected area off Gabo where the fleet were hit, and where the East Australian Current was running against the sou'westerly storm seaway at 3-4 knots, a factor contributing to the big rogue waves that took a number of yachts out. Accounts from blokes in the race who I've sailed with over the years, plus reports from other yachts and heli crews in the enquiry that followed, were that 20-25m rogues were rumbling through fairly regularly. One yacht reckoned they got barrelled on one of them.
thermalben, 1433310360
"A deep East Coast Low over the southeast Tasman Sea sets up a strong pulse of mid period SSE groundswell for Thursday under favourable W winds."
... says one surf website about the current synoptic situation.
It ain't an East Coast Low when it's sitting just off New Zealand's West Coast.
wellymon, 1433311892
"EIL"
East Island Low, commonly referred to as "SFS" sheep fuckers system.
udo, 1433312312
SFS ha ha classic.
Cylinders85, 1433312829
Haha Gold
thermalben, 1440554796
Now THIS was an East Coast Low!
48hr rain totals: 439mm at Tomerong, 390mm at Nowra, 336mm at Kiama.
davetherave, 1440594460
why 500 kms? Is that just a figure they used or does it have some weather relation, like rain events, wind strengths back on coastline etc.
often wondered why it is not categorised like cyclones as they all have different strengths- what did the pressure drop to in the guts of this girl?
rain events like a cat 3 or 4 storm?
thermalben, 1454391420
"An East Coast Low is about to deliver a glut of powerful surf to the Eastern Seaboard"... says a particular surf website about the current synoptic situation.
This is not an East Coast Low. In fact, it would be more accurate to call this upcoming system a 'West Coast Low', as it's going to be positioned closer to the West Coast of New Zealand than the East Coast of Australia.
As weather forecasters, it's our job to inform but also educate readers. As much as surfers get excited about terms such as 'East Coast Low' they're very particular systems, much the same way a cyclone is a weather system with particular characteristics.
See the above article for a description of the characteristics of an ECL.
freeride76, 1454392162
that is in a gorgeous position.
Craig, 1454392320
The start to this year keeps getting better and better.
batfink, 1454412094
Craig, unbelievable.
Yesterday and today were the only virtually unsurfable days I can remember this year, at least swell wise. I say virtually as there were still plenty of punters out having a go both arvos, but I couldn't even raise the interest for a bodysurf.
And that will all be back to top gear on Friday, with me looking for hidey holes.
Thanks for clearing that up Ben. I was thinking, based on learnings from this here website and other reading, that this was not an ECL, but a Tasman low.
Craig, 1454445375
I've been sliding these perfect little banks at Manly on my 8ft singley, water is as warm as it gets, suns out and there's more swell coming, life is great!
belly, 1454465384
I think you're still dirty that someone posted a chart on swellnet from another website :-)
Lanky Dean, 1454475630
@ udo ,Have you ever read The Proving Ground ?
Lanky Dean, 1454476483
Was the storm of the 98 Sydney to Hobart yacht race and ECL or tasman ?
Lanky Dean, 1454480352
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgsp_kHicu8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5554FxUXwg
robbo, 1454484858
The 98 Hobart storm I think was a 'cut off low' that formed in Bass Strait (the low centre was initially just off Wynyard on the NW Tas coast), and then intensified as it moved east through Bass Strait and eventually into the Tasman. Bass Strait Low? A storm that rips through the Strait from time to time and helps maintain its reputation.
thermalben, 1527729114
Exciting couple of days of chart/buoy/obs watching with a significant Tasman Low undergoing development (not a 'large scale East Coast Low').
[img]https://imgur.com/D4v7RIt.png[/img]
thermalben, 1558556772
The BOM have - finally! - done an informative article on this topic ("So, when is a bad-weather-bringing low not an ECL?").
Relevant to much of this discussion is this description:
"If an intense low pressure system lies further from the coast than around 200 km, we usually call it an offshore (or Tasman) low."
http://media.bom.gov.au/social/blog/2140/know-your-lows-east-coast-lows-and-lookalikes
Distracted, 1558570273
Ben, conditions look set up for an ECL with warm water and amcooler air, but not much on the charts, does the Long Wave Trough need to align up the East Coast to improve chances of an ECL now?
Craig, 1558578563
We need a few things to go right for an ECL to form. Firstly a pronounced node of the LWT will help as it's more likely to shed off an upper cold pool in the upper atmosphere which provides the catalyst for surface trough/low intensification. We also need the uppers to be fairly stationary so that the cold pool isn't swept off to the east quickly.
The current predictions for next week don't have the cold pool shedding off, so any kind of low looks unlikely.
udo, 1558582763
Anyone here ever converse with Roger Badham re east coast weather
Lives near you Stu i think ?