Southern Tasmanian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday April 23rd)

Best Days: Tomorrow morning, Friday, Saturday, Sunday ahead of the change, Monday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing surf tomorrow with fresh N winds
• Inconsistent W/SW groundswell filling in Fri with N/NW tending variable winds ahead of a possibly late S change
• Building mix of moderate sized W/SW swells Sat with variable winds
• W/SW swell persisting Sun with fresh NW tending strong SW winds
• Stronger S/SW swell Mon with variable tending S winds

Recap

Yesterday started clean with a good, building swell, peaking into the afternoon as winds shifted onshore but without too much strength. Today the swell was still solid and 3ft with clean conditions ahead of weak sea breezes. 

This week and weekend (Apr 24 - 27)

The current swell is due to ease off further into tomorrow under fresh N’ly offshores, while moving into Friday, our inconsistent but good W/SW groundswell should fill in, peaking through the afternoon.

As touched on in Monday’s notes, the source was a strong but distant low that formed east of the Heard Island region, generating a good fetch of severe-gale W’ly winds before weakening while projecting east.

The swell will be inconsistent but should push to 2ft across Clifton through the day with morning N/NW winds that will tend variable ahead of a possible late S’ly change.

Into the weekend, a healthy polar low projecting towards us over the coming days should produce a fun pulse of building W/SW swell with fetches of strong to sub-gale-force W/SW winds due. This will be then followed by a fast tracking secondary frontal system swinging in behind it, with both due to generate a building mix of W/SW swells Saturday to 2-3ft into the afternoon, holding a similar size Sunday.

A secondary burst of activity directly under is Sunday may generate a bit more size out of the S/SW through later Sunday and Monday, pushing to 3-4ft.

The models diverge a little around this but we’ll review it on Friday.

Local winds for the weekend look variable on Saturday with fresh NW winds Sunday ahead of an afternoon SW change. Onshore winds should turn variable into Monday morning but we’ll review this Friday.