Hi Scottie A, where did you see 125km/h+. There's a gale warning out for coastal offshore waters from late tomorrow morning into Saturday, but that's only going for winds of 65-75 km/h while over land in the SW the top expected speeds are late tomorrow morning at 45-55km/h. Even though the low is skirting fairly close to the south TAS coast with a central pressure of 988 tomorrow morning, the Bureau's manual forecast isn't going for an exceptionally strong pressure gradient, hence their borderline gale warning. My gut feeling is wind will be stronger by 10-15km/h, but it's the Tassie guys doing the forecasting and they know their weather better than I do.

The snow is another matter. They've eased off the forecast a bit - snow level lowering to 700m tomorrow, maintaining that on Saturday then lifting on Sunday. Their own guidance gives 25-50mm on the West Coast and Southwest during Fri-Sun, grading to 15-25 on the Central Plateau. I would have thought these significant snow accumulations above 700m would have warranted some sort of warning. However, with TAS now standardised in its forecasting and warning practices (along with SA, VIC and NSW), I believe that the old bushwalkers, road and sheep alerts are no longer issued, and only a severe weather warning can be issued to deal with the situations that they used to cover. I would have thought this was a case where it was justified.

Hi Laurier,

The 125km/h+ max gusts came from the ECMWF Model, has been very consistently progged and a excellent performer usually.

Im certain TAS still issue Sheep Grazier warnings unless this is a very recent change or im misunderstanding what you mean.

Lets see what happens, Im certainly no expert especially with these systems down south.

Edit: Just on a side note looking through the latest charts EC has moved the timing/impact (wind element) of the low on land to a little later around 10am tommorow this may explain why no warnings went out. Probably will at 5am tomorrow.

All interesting reading crew. I'm looking forward to heading down there next Wednesday. Hopefully some snow still on the ground when I head up to Cradle Mountain. Will take a few pics and post them up in here. Good to see this forum slowly firing with some interest. If we move down to Tassie in Nov I will have to fire it up.

Also DaveM, I was on a small (powered) boat in Fiji many moons ago, and I threatened a 'mutiny' if the boats 'captain' didn't stop joking that he as going to cross through the 'channel' between two islands and head into what looked like something out of "The Perfect Storm"

Love the sea, but respect it's power too.

Sorry to persist, Scottie, but what site gave you a gust reading from the EC? I know Wunderground's Wundermaps [here] give a lot more parameters than available on other public weather sites, but not wind gusts. Was it the registered section of EWN? This morning's EC has a belt of 40-45 knot winds hitting the TAS West Coast south of Strahan about 10 tomorrow morning, then sliding around the south coast during the day before moving off east mid-afternoon. It keeps land winds below 25knots except for the far SW coastal fringe. If you add the usual 40% for gusts to an average of 45 knots, you get 45 knots = 83km/h x 1.4 = 116km/h so maybe that's where the 125 comes from?

As for the sheep grazier alerts, I hope you're right.

Hi Laurier, nah not EWN but from another subscription service. It is a 10m max gusts chart I am getting the readings from I have found it to be very reliable from what I understand it takes into account topography etc. 125km/h+ is the upper scale in a very localised area but 100-120km/h for much of the SW corner, which is still over the criteria for SWW.

Yeh im sure they still do issue sheep grazier warnings, the most recent one was issued one on the 27th of April 2012.

Sorry for the multiple postings keep getting distracted. VIC, SA, TAS and NSW all still currently issue Sheep grazier warnings.

Thanks Scottie. The 100-120km/h gusts would agree with the average wind given by the EC charts on Wundermap that I mentioned earlier, given the usual allowance of gusts being up to 40% higher than mean winds. The 10.02pm issue marine wind warning summary (i.e. coastal) for Friday is:

Gale warning for Far North West Coast, Central North Coast, Banks Strait and Franklin Sound, East of Flinders Island, Lower East Coast, South East Coast, South West Coast and Central West Coast

Strong wind warning for Upper East Coast, Storm Bay and Channel

Small craft alert for Central Plateau Lakes and South West Lakes

It's a bit surprising, though, that the Ocean Wind Warning for the South Eastern Area is:

Clockwise winds 34/47 knots within 540nm of low in all quadrants except the southeast. Winds 45/55 knots within 300nm of low in northwestern semicircle.

I would have thought that the NW semicircle impinged on the TAS South Coastal area, so there might be a conflict of forecasts there.

Also interesting is that the Ocean Wind Warning contains the now usual proviso: PLEASE BE AWARE Wind gusts can be 40 percent stronger than the averages given here, and maximum waves may be up to twice the height. However, the coastal wind warning doesn't mention this.

Right on cue following our discussion, a road weather alert came out at 10.01pm for gusty winds (but no mention of snow) just about everywhere on Friday. Tucked away on the Bureau's site is a list of "unclassified warnings" [here] that's dated October 2004, and these are the warnings that I feared may have been eliminated. I know there was some fierce debate in the Bureau as to how warnings should be standardised across the country, but it seems those that argued for their regional peculiarities, like brown rot in VIC, won out. Good.

When I was down there we had some spirited discussions with BOM folk in Tas re warnings at times. A few of us felt they left Bushwalkers alerts in particular too late for walkers about to set off on walks. We thought these were particularly important ones because it may stop walkers heading into the high areas with a bit of a "heads up" a few days out.

They still seem to leave B/W warnings till quite late from what I've seen.

A few scattered showers and strong wing gusts about 20 mins apart in Hobart this morning. Enough to blow the deck chairs over.
Most of the weather is hitting the back of Mt.Wellington and pushing south as per the BOM Radar. No snow yet but the wind chill is picking up so fingers crossed.

Got awoken at around 4:20am to the SWW as I thought/mentioned.

Severe Weather Warning
for damaging winds
for people in the Midlands, Upper Derwent Valley, South East, Western and East Coast forecast districts
Issued at 4:21 am EST on Friday 11 May 2012.
Weather Situation
A cold front is crossing Tasmania while an associated low will move south of the state during today.

Damaging winds averaging 50 km/h with peak gusts around 100 km/h are forecast for the Upper Derwent Valley and South East forecast districts and parts of the Midlands, Western and East Coast forecast districts, mainly from late morning until early evening. The area affected lies south of a line from Strahan to Maria Island.

Recent gusts have included 98 km/h at Maatsuyker Island, 93 km/h on Mt Wellington, 87 km/h at Cape Sorell and 76 km/h at Low Rocky Point.

The State Emergency Service and Tasmania Police advise that people should:

Secure or put away loose items around your house, yard and balcony.
Keep clear of fallen power lines.

Tell you what, that new radar for Hobart (Tasman Peninsular) is EXCELLENT compared to the old one. It provides a dramatically better view of precip across large areas of the state. Gee I wish I had access to that when I was living there.

Deck chairs - yeah I remember my cast iron chairs blowing over reasonably regularly on my patio in Ridgeway - it does get breezy in Tas

That low must be very close to Maatsuyker - baro down to 994.0, wind averaging around 100km/h with gust of 124km/h sometime in the 10 mins to 10.51. The Maatsuyker instrument gives atypical readings because it is perched atop a sharp cliff 150m above the sea, but most other locations in the rather hastily issued SWW area are now into strong wind or near gale territory - Hobart AP for instance is now gusting 80km/h. EC got it right, Scotty, as did GFS though the mean wind speeds over land were underestimated by both models. Winds everywhere still from the NW or NNW so the trough has yet to pass. Cape Sorell waverider has just reported a peak wave a tad over 10m.

Local ABC news , at 12.30 pm. 16mm rain at Mole Creek , 4mm falling as Snow in Cradle Valley. Snow to 600 to 700 mts in the Central Plateau. Wave Rider Bouy has hit 14 meters and expected to go higher this afternoon and this evening. Low expected to hang around next 24hrs then slowly move away.

Good info there H2o - thanks. There are a few people watching here so any local info is great. I suppose the Mt is stopping a few of your showers there as usual.

That was a rogue wave at midday [here] but significant wave heights (average of highest third) are running at 7m with max heights 10-12m and still rising. Maatsuyker's wind has been averaging 100-120km/h since about 10.30 with the highest gust so far 139km/h at ~1.36pm and Low Rocky Point, which is more representative, has been averaging 50-70km/h with gusts 80-95. Mt Read near Zeehan at 1120m has had 6mm precipitation since the rain turned to snow a bit after noon with heavy snow now falling. Mt Wellington cam [here] is showing classic coldies moving across, obscuring the mountain, while Mt Mawson (near Mt Field NP) is snowing a nice initial dusting [here].

Mt Mawson is a great Spot in this type of weather - if you want shelter, Lake Dobson just below is stunning when snowing and NO CROWDS

Mt Rufus should have done well with this change too (just west of Lake St Clair) it is an excellent snow catcher and accumulator. It usually hold large drifts till late spring or early summer which are clearly visible from the highway.

Current apparent temp on Mt Wellington minus 17 - youch!!

Damn straight Big M, that new radar is excellent, but hard to get use to seeing showers and rain across the SW. Can see then stopping short of Hobart on the ranges and not making it off the western tiers