Gold Coast
Australia
Last wave reading:
Now at the buoy
Significant wave height at the buoy
2.6 ft
0.8 m
- Dominant period
- —
- Direction
- no direction
This station does not send a swell and wind-wave split, so the numbers are for the whole sea.
Waves: 2.6 ft. Building over the last 6 hours, up 0.6 ft.
Significant wave height is the average of the biggest third of waves at the buoy. It is not surf height at a beach.
Trend at the buoy
Height at the buoy
- Total (significant height)
Period
- Dominant period
Hourly means of the buoy's readings. Arrows point the way the waves travel.
Model vs the buoy
- Buoy, hourly
- Model, past days
- Model forecast
Over the last day, the model ran 43% high against the buoy.
| Day | Height | Peak period | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri, Nov 13 | 3.5 ft | 6.3 s | ENE |
| Sat, Nov 14 | 3.7 ft | 5.7 s | NE |
| Sun, Nov 15 | 3.7 ft | 6 s | NE |
| Mon, Nov 16 | 3.3 ft | 7.4 s | NE |
| Tue, Nov 17 | 6.4 ft | 7.7 s | SSE |
| Wed, Nov 18 | 6.2 ft | 8.5 s | SSE |
| Thu, Nov 19 | 5.6 ft | 8.3 s | SE |
| Fri, Nov 20 | 4.9 ft | 9.1 s | SE |
ECMWF WAM wave model via Open-Meteo, nearest model cell (28.000°S, 153.500°E). Both lines are significant wave height at sea, the same measure the buoy reports. Model output, not a Quiver beach forecast.
Nearby buoys
- Palm Beach2.8 ft · 3.9 sLive · 15 km
- Tweed Heads3.1 ftLive · 27 km
- Tweed Offshore3.5 ftLive · 36 km
- North Moreton Bay3.1 ft · 4.3 sLive · 120 km
- Caloundra3.2 ft · 4.5 sLive · 128 km
- Mooloolaba3.2 ft · 4.3 sLive · 158 km
How to read this buoy
Biggest hourly reading in that record: 3.2 ft on Nov 11.
- Operator
- Queensland Department of Environment and Science/Gold Coast City Council
- Program
- Australian national wave buoy network (AODN)
- Position
- 27.970°S, 153.450°E
- Type
- Moored buoy
- Local time zone
- Australia/Brisbane
- Swell split
- No, whole-sea numbers only
Source: Data was sourced from Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) - IMOS is enabled by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS). Licence: CC BY 4.0. Changes: Quiver converts the units (feet, knots, °F) and shows a subset of the published fields. Station page at the source.
Not for navigation. Readings can be late, missing or wrong; check official marine forecasts before going to sea.
Buoy terms
- Significant height
- The average of the biggest third of waves the buoy measured. Sets in the surf zone can be bigger or smaller.
- Dominant period
- Seconds between the waves carrying the most energy. Longer period means more power and more bend around points.
- Swell vs wind waves
- Swell was made by distant wind; wind waves were made nearby. The buoy splits its spectrum at a cutoff period to report each.
- Direction
- Where waves come from, in degrees true. 270° is from the west.
