LifestyleWarm weekend with sunny skies ahead

Warm weekend with sunny skies ahead

warm weekend
Craig Holden says it will be a warm weekend, with sunny skies and maximum temperatures around 32 degrees. Photo: File, Woodgate Beach

Craig Holden says it will be a warm weekend, with sunny skies and maximum temperatures around 32 degrees.

Well, it has been a wild and windy week on our beaches, with those open and exposed locations feeling the brunt of those strong and gusty SE winds.

Looking ahead to the coming days but, and there is good news for beach-goers – you just have to get through today first and then the winds will ease overnight tonight and into tomorrow.

It is going to be a warm weekend too, with sunny skies and maximum temperatures that are set to reach around 32 degrees on both Saturday and Sunday.

Today’s winds will continue to be quite gusty with the forecast suggesting around 20 knots of S/SE winds throughout the day, but with stronger gusts.

Saturday, however, is looking much better, with light S/SW winds through the morning at around 10 knots, that will then eventually swing from the E/Ne by mid to late afternoon and sneak up to 10 to 15 knots.

Sunday will then bring light N/NW winds (5 to 10 knots) through the morning before they increase to 15+ knots by mid to late afternoon.

This could all also change too, depending on the track of TC Gabrielle, so keep an eye on current forecasts each day.

Swimming: Swimming conditions have been pretty ordinary for the most part during the past week, with the open and exposed beaches being very choppy and very messy (and even quite rough through yesterday).

These conditions will continue through today, with more rough and messy conditions expected on the open and exposed beaches, together with moderate wave heights and strong currents.

But, as we get to the weekend, we can certainly expect the ocean to become calmer as the wind and the wave heights start to ease.

In particular, both tomorrow morning and Sunday morning, will be good for swimmers across most beaches, but we do expect some residual swell to hang around for another day or more, so just be mindful of strong currents and extra water movement.

For today, my suggestion for a best beach for swimmers would be Hervey Bay, but by tomorrow morning all beaches should be okay as the ocean settles.

But by Saturday afternoon and into Sunday, beaches such as Elliott Heads and Kelly’s Beach will be best when that wind turns northerly again.

Please check with the lifeguard on duty, read any safety signage or messages, and most importantly please swim only at patrolled beaches, only between the red and yellow flags, and only during patrol times – remember, if we can’t see you, we can’t save you!

Beach patrols: Weekdays – 9 am to 5 pm at Kelly’s Beach and Agnes Water only

Saturday – 9 m to 5 pm at Kelly’s Beach, Nielson Park, Oaks Beach and Agnes Water; 1 pm to 5 pm at Elliott Heads and Moore Park Beach.

Sunday – 9 am to 5 pm at Elliott Heads, Kelly’s Beach, Nielson Park, Oaks Beach, Moore Park Beach and Agnes Water

Surfing: Well, it has been a windy and messy week of surf across our local beaches, but the wave heights certainly started to increase through Wednesday and again through yesterday as well.

The peak of the wave heights is likely to be this morning, but the ocean is also likely to be quite rough and very messy.

However, as the winds start to ease – maybe by late this afternoon – the wave quality should certainly improve but the wave height will likely slowly decrease too! In a nutshell then, it is likely to be messy and rough today but with a bit of size to it, but then expect much cleaner but smaller waves maybe by late this afternoon but more likely through tomorrow morning.

For today, your best locations will be Agnes Water, Nielson Park Beach, Mon Repos and Moore Park Beach.

For tomorrow morning, I am going to suggest all of the same locations, but don’t write-off Kelly’s Beach and even Elliott Heads.

Then by Sunday morning, Kelly’s Beach and Elliott Heads may still have a small, clean wave for the mal riders. Good luck!

For the SUP and ocean ski paddlers, there will be plenty of downwind fun today (south to north), but then across the weekend, there should be enough wind for a north to south downwind run through the late afternoons.

If not, there should be plenty clean, fun waves through tomorrow morning and maybe also again Sunday morning.

Events: Good luck to our local surf lifesavers that will be competing in either the WBC Branch Surf Lifesaving Championships at Hervey Bay tomorrow, or the Summer of Surf Shannon Eckstein ironman Classic on the Gold Coast today and tomorrow.

  • Last week's beach report: Warm and muggy days set to continue

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