S/SE swells, then a return to energy from the SW

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 19th August)

Best Days: Tomorrow, Friday, protected spots later Saturday and Sunday

Recap

Tiny and clean waves for beginners yesterday, with the swell bottoming out today.

This week and weekend (Aug 20 - 23)

Tomorrow is expected to start slow but a fun pulse of S/SE swell is due to build through the afternoon, generated by a slow moving fetch of strong to near gale-force SE winds in our swell window.

The swell should build tomorrow and reach 2-3ft later in the day, then easing from 2ft+ on Friday. Winds are OK though not perfect and out of the W-W/NW all day tomorrow, then N tending NE on Friday.

Moving into the weekend we should see a low pressure system that will form tomorrow, south-west of Tassie, moving in from the west, projecting a fetch of strong to near gale-force S/SE winds up and into us Saturday afternoon.

This is a little weaker than forecast on Monday and as a result less size is expected with stormy waves building later in the day to 5-6ft with strong S/SE winds, then easing slowly Sunday from 4-5ft+ with strong S tending S/SW winds.

Monday may see winds shift to the W as the SE swell continues to ease from 2ft or so.

Behind this low a weak polar front may generate a small SW swell for Tuesday, but we'll review this Friday.

Longer term a polar frontal progression moving in from the west looks to generate some fun swells for the rest of the week, but more on this Friday.