Southern Tasmanian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday May 9th)

Best Days: Selected spots Wednesday, Thursday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate sized mid-period E/SE swell for tomorrow and Wed, easing Thu
• Moderate sized, inconsistent SW groundswell for later tomorrow and Wed AM, easing Thu
• Fresh S/SE winds tomorrow, lighter SW winds Wed (possibly W/NW in the AM)
• Tiny W/SW groundswell for later Thu and Fri with N/NW winds
• Small, inconsistent W/SW groundswell Sun, building with strong N/NE winds

Recap

The surf was tiny on Saturday with a bit of north in the wind, increasing a little bit through the day.

Our flukey window of winds and new swell for yesterday came in nicely with variable west winds and 2ft+ of swell before deteriorating into the afternoon.

Today we’ve got onshore winds and a building mix of E/SE and SE swells.

This week and weekend (Jun 10 - 15)

A cold, strong low is currently sitting north-east of us with an infeed of strong E/SE winds kicking up poor conditions and a mix of localised windswell and mid-period E/SE swell from the bottom side of the low.

The low is expected to sit east of us most of the week, with small levels of mid-period E/SE swell due through tomorrow and Wednesday, easing back from Thursday.

Local winds look to remain onshore from the S/SE through tomorrow, shifting SW on Wednesday (possibly W/NW for a period), which isn’t ideal for Clifton but other spots are worth a check keeping in mind there’ll be more size on offer at exposed spots in Storm Bay.

Sets to 2ft to occasionally 3ft are due across Clifton, easing through the day with fading 2ft+ waves Thursday (bigger more exposed breaks).

Also in the mix later tomorrow and Wednesday morning will be a good SW groundswell, generated by a strong polar low that formed east of the Heard Island region over the weekend. A fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/NW winds should result in 2-3ft sets across Clifton, easing through the day.

Conditions look cleaner Thursday with a N/NW offshore, variable into the afternoon, with N/NW winds on Friday as a tricky but mostly too westerly groundswell fills in.

This has and is still being generated by a mid-latitude low that’s currently too north of our swell window.

Come Sunday, an inconsistent W/SW groundswell is due though to no major size with better swell potential into next week. More on this Wednesday as the models currently diverge a little.