South-east swell in winter

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

Southern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday August 8th)

Best Days: No good days

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

  • Tiny fading S/SE swell tomorrow with N/NW tending variable winds
  • Small E/SE swell Wed with N tending stronger N/NE winds
  • Tiny S/SW swell building Sat PM with strengthening E winds
  • Building E/SE swell Sun, holding Mon along with gusty E/SE winds
  • Easing E/SE swell Tue with lighter winds

Recap

Poor surf on Saturday with strong onshore winds and a building S/SE swell, much better and cleaner into yesterday with lighter winds and fun, easing sets from 2-3ft.

Today we've still got 2ft sets and great conditions but the S'ly swell is now on the way out.

This week and weekend (Aug 9 - 14)

The source of the S/SE swell over the weekend and today has left the building and as a result tomorrow looks to become tiny, fading from 1ft max across Clifton.

Unfortunately the outlook for the coming week or two remains poor with all the storm activity taking place north of our swell window, west and to the south-west of Western Australia.

Don't expect any decent size across the South Arm at all through this week, with our main source of swell again due to arrive from the south-eastern quadrant later in the weekend and early next week. There's a small pulse of E/SE swell due across exposed breaks Wednesday from a fetch of E/SE gales off the southern tip of New Zealand but with N tending stronger N/NE winds. Less than ideal.

On the weekend a deepening low off our East Coast will drift south and squeeze a strong high, producing a fetch of strong to gale-force E/SE winds and some small swell that looks to come in around the 2ft range across Clifton (bigger down the Arm) but with poor E'ly winds.

A tiny pulse of S/SW swell to 1-1.5ft may be seen on Saturday afternoon (with E winds) from a weak polar front but we'll have a closer look at this Wednesday.

Longer term there's still nothing major on the cards from the Southern Ocean so check out the East Coast notes this evening for more options.