Billabong Pipe Masters 2014 Forecast

Well..

Been keeping a close eye on things and it's sticking with the large swell at the end of the model run, and the LWT charts are the reason for this.

Strong node forecast to develop across the North Pacific through the waiting period.

Forecast for Wed 10th December.

I was referring to the forecast swell for Thurs 11th? Which was progged in Tuesday's run to occur on Wed 10th, it then dissappeared in yesterday's run, and now it's back on in today's run but to arrive on Thurs 11th. That doesn't instill a huge amount of confidence in me that it will occur at the progged forecast heights....we're talking 10-12ft here.

Yeah, the thing to note this far out is trends, as you have.

Is the large swell being consistently forecast? Or if it's just a one off appearance, you can lower the confidence considerably.

Seeing as it's been holding something significant for the past couple of days I'd be starting to get a touch more confident.

It did drop it completely in one of it's runs yesterday. My confidence of a 10-12ft swell coming to fruition on Thursday 11th is about 10-20% ATM.

Back to Wed now. My confidence has just risen to 20-30%.

Yep still holding, but remember this far out we're just trying to confirm any trends indicating a signiticant groundswell through the waiting period, ignoring the size outputs.

With the forecast still healthy my confidence is even higher.

My original post was about a SOLID swell remember Craig. I'm not talking about no 6ft pipe here!!!

Yeah me too! Above I say significant groundswell.

PS, see NASA have got their QuikSCAT replacement up and running, named RapidScat.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4371

Not available to the public yet, but should be eventually.

Giddy the feck up!!!

Whilst not publicly available I assume weather model agencies will have access to it now?

Yeah, NOAA and some other agencies have access to it at the moment.

thats great news.

Well, this is a little earlier than expected!

From Dr. Jeff Masters' blog on Wunderground, November 24, 2009:

"A replacement dual-frequency QuikSCAT satellite that has superior capabilities to old one is being explored by NOAA and NASA, in partnership with the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA). The new QuikSCAT instrument would fly on the Japanese GCOM-Water Cycle satellite, scheduled to launch in January 2016. However, funding must begin in 2010 in order to meet this launch deadline, and no funding for a new QuikSCAT has been put into the Administration's FY 2011 budget."

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1388

A January 2016 launch would usually suggest an operational service 6-12 months later.

Just in time for TC season too, which should help the GFS model become a little more accurate with its forecasts one would hope?

Absolutely. Quikscat data was assimilated into each analysis model run (not just GFS, but other models too) which certainly assists in its accuracy.

Yes but if NOAA is the only one with access to this data at present I assume GFS will be the only weather model having access to it at present?

There's a broad, long standing co-operative sharing arrangement between most national weather forecasting agencies (i.e. ASCAT is European, but would have been freely used by the US). So I imagine they'll be sharing the data.

"The agencies that will receive near-real-time RapidScat data include NOAA, the U.S. Navy, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI)."

Winds look a bit odd for that solid swell on Thursday 11th. Very non-tradewind like!!!

Ok, I'm getting more confident on this solid-ish swell now!!! Although models still bouncing around somewhat on size, timing and longevity.

As am I.

Also the closer the storm pushes towards Hawaii, the worse the winds will probably be, but on the backside of the swell and front conditions are generally better. Tonight's update will be another good one to keep an eye on!

Potential for a VERY similar setup to the last typhoon that went through the NW Pacific and created the solid under the radar swell a few weeks back.....potentially for the last few days of the Pipe contest if current models come to fruition?

Yep Don, exactly the same transition Nuri took if current forecasts hold true, getting excited!!