Tasman Low

Craig's picture
Craig started the topic in Friday, 30 Apr 2010 at 4:29am

My room mate has pointed me too the current SST's observations off Australia's East Coast as shown below...

Image

Have a look at the warm water straight off the Sydney coast and also to the north and south!

Surfing this morning at Curly, it was the warmest I have felt the water all week, and also the fish have been going nuts of late.

Lots of bait balls jumping around in feeding frenzies :o

What I'm getting at is that the upper level long wave trough is expected to move east and across the south-east of the country later next week, and with a mix of a cool upper atmosphere and warm SST's could we see some kind of low forming in the southern Tasman Sea.

We'll watch and see :)

freeride76's picture
freeride76's picture
freeride76 Monday, 3 May 2010 at 12:55am

Very interesting Craig and starting to look more and more like 2007, when a decaying Nino transitioned rapidly to a La Nina and the east coast threw up 7 ECL's. Atmospheric models still mixed but looking more like at least cool/neutral or some kind of Nina phase this spring summer. That spells very good odds for an active winter.

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Thursday, 6 May 2010 at 10:46am

Well we've got the first one forming during tomorrow, and it looks like there may be more to come into next week.

Seems as if something has to give..

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Thursday, 6 May 2010 at 10:31pm

My money is on a very damn fine looking bomb low come mid-late next week Craig. How's the cold air mass that's predicted to push out over the very warm Tasman Wed/Thurs next week!!!

rusty-moran's picture
rusty-moran's picture
rusty-moran Thursday, 6 May 2010 at 10:43pm
freeride76's picture
freeride76's picture
freeride76 Friday, 7 May 2010 at 12:20am

solid Tasman low Rusty but technically not an ECL.

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Friday, 7 May 2010 at 1:11am

Right on Don, that strong burst of cold air coupled with the warm waters from the EAC look to result in the formation of a fairly impressive weather system.

And all the while I'm back in SA...

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Friday, 7 May 2010 at 3:07am

One question Craig (and others). Do the weather/MSLP models take into account the current sea surface temperature state of the Tasman?

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Friday, 7 May 2010 at 4:05am

I'd be worried if they didn't Don. I don't know if they have day to day observations or an average of the last few days or something similar.

You can't have a weather model that doesn't take into account the ocean, they are a coupled system and work off each other. The ocean-landmass differences as well as the differential heating over the globe are the main drivers of the weather patterns that we see as I'm sure you know.

I don't know how recent the SST obs are that they use though??

rusty-moran's picture
rusty-moran's picture
rusty-moran Friday, 7 May 2010 at 5:24am

solid Tasman low Rusty but technically not an ECL.

By: "freeride76"

Yep gotcha. Cheers.

How about the jetstream?
http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display_alt.cgi?a=spac_250
It's starting to swing up the east coast by thursday but not ideal for the development of full on storm cells hey? Winter 2007 we had full blown jetstream leading the way for that famous run of low pressure cells.

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Friday, 7 May 2010 at 8:11am

Looks like the models are staying true with this one :o

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Saturday, 8 May 2010 at 1:58am

And fair to say that if the Thurs/Fri charts come to fruition, SE Qld will actually get some juice from this puppy as well!!!

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Tuesday, 11 May 2010 at 10:52am

So what's your thoughts on the current long range GFS and EC charts progging a low pressure system off the SE Qld coastline this time next week? Surely it's got to be brain explosion of the models to be progging such a system that fat north this time of year?

Anyone?

thermalben's picture
thermalben's picture
thermalben Tuesday, 11 May 2010 at 1:32pm

Way too far out at this stage Don.. too much complexity in the current pattern to start thinking about the middle of next week!

freeride76's picture
freeride76's picture
freeride76 Tuesday, 11 May 2010 at 9:42pm

Don, no-where near uncommon for an ECL to form off the NE coast of NSW or even the Fraser coast.......I'm liking the suggestion of an inland trough/unstable uppers that start to appear down the QLD/NSW interior through next week.

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Wednesday, 12 May 2010 at 2:54am

Don, no-where near uncommon for an ECL to form off the NE coast of NSW or even the Fraser coast.

By: "freeride76"

For me, it just appeared to be forming (and intensifying) too far to the north compared with a more typical ECL scenario of formation off the mid-Nth NSW coastline and then tracking SEwards as it intensified. EC had the low pressure forming off Fraser and moving eastwards, which to me looked more typical of a late summer/early Autumn scenario.

I notice the models have diverged somewhat from this scenario now, although both GFS and EC have a rather spectacular bomb low forming at the limits of their modelling, but as Ben has indicated, this certainly needs to be taken with a grain of salt!!!

donweather's picture
donweather's picture
donweather Sunday, 16 May 2010 at 3:20am

Hmmmmm, could late next weekend be the sign of things to come this winter? 2007, did I hear someone say?