Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 1st January)

Best Days: Beginners Saturday and Sunday mornings, Monday morning, Thursday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing mid-period SW swell tomorrow with morning offshore winds
• Small to tiny W/SW swell pulses next week, becoming onshore Thu/Fri

Recap

Happy New Year! We saw poor, onshore surf yesterday with a new swell for the afternoon, a bit cleaner this morning with a variable wind and 1-2ft sets.

This weekend and next week (Jan 2 - 8)

The weekend will be mostly tiny with 1-1.5ft surf through tomorrow and Sunday morning ahead of a better increase in mid-period W/SW swell later in the day, easing Monday.

This swell and a secondary pulse for Wednesday morning are being generated by relatively weak but sustained polar frontal systems developing around the Heard Island region, projecting east through our swell windows.

Size wise 2ft sets are due later Sunday and Monday morning, with a secondary pulse due late Tuesday but more so Wednesday to a similar size.

Looking at the local conditions, and coming back to the coming days, tomorrow morning a N/NE offshore will shift E/NE and strengthen through the afternoon, similar Sunday. Monday should be clean again in the morning though a trough will bring a S/SE change, lingering light S/SE Tuesday and fresher SW Wednesday.

Looking into later Wednesday/Thursday and our stronger groundswell mentioned on Wednesday has been upgraded, with a strong polar low due to form on the back of the current frontal activity.

We should see a great fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W'ly winds moving in on top of an active sea state, with the low remaining at strength while moving to a position just south-west of us before finally weakening.

This should generate a moderate to large SW groundswell that should kick strongly later Wednesday, reaching 3-4ft by dark across Clifton, peaking Thursday morning to 4-5ft. Winds are this stage are still dicey and look S/SE but we'll have a closer look at this Monday. Have a great weekend!