Townsville
Australia
Last wave reading:
Now at the buoy
Significant wave height at the buoy
1.3 ft
0.4 m
- Dominant period
- 7.7 s
- Direction
- from NE 48°
This station does not send a swell and wind-wave split, so the numbers are for the whole sea.
Short-period swell: 1.3 ft at 7.7 s from the NE. Holding steady over the last 6 hours.
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 16% low against the buoy.
| Day | Height | Peak period | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fri, Nov 13 | 1.4 ft | 7 s | NE |
| Sat, Nov 14 | 1.4 ft | 6.3 s | NE |
| Sun, Nov 15 | 1.4 ft | 4 s | NE |
| Mon, Nov 16 | 1.4 ft | 3.1 s | NNE |
| Tue, Nov 17 | 1.3 ft | 2.9 s | N |
| Wed, Nov 18 | 1.4 ft | 3.1 s | ENE |
| Thu, Nov 19 | 1.6 ft | 3.1 s | ENE |
| Fri, Nov 20 | 1.4 ft | 5.6 s | ENE |
ECMWF WAM wave model via Open-Meteo, nearest model cell (19.250°S, 147.000°E). Both lines are significant wave height at sea, the same measure the buoy reports. Model output, not a Quiver beach forecast.
Nearby buoys
- Mission Beach1.4 ft · 7.9 sLive · 164 km
How to read this buoy
Over the readings shown here, most wave energy reached this buoy from the NE.
Biggest hourly reading in that record: 1.7 ft at 5 s on Nov 11.
- Operator
- Queensland Department of Environment and Science
- Program
- Australian national wave buoy network (AODN)
- Position
- 19.180°S, 147.080°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.
