Southern Tasmanian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday May 20th)

Best Days: Later tomorrow, Sunday, Friday next week

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small, inconsistent W/SW groundswell building later tomorrow, peaking Sun AM, easing
• N/NW tending variable winds tomorrow, N/NW tending variable E Sun
• Moderate sized mid-period S/SW swell likely for later Wed, peaking Thu with strong W/SW-W winds
• Easing swell Fri with N/NW winds

Recap

The low moving under us Wednesday kept 1-2ft waves hitting the coast through yesterday before becoming tiny into today under light offshore winds.

This weekend and next week (Jun 21 - 27)

Tomorrow is due to start tiny, but later in the day and Sunday morning our inconsistent W/SW groundswell is due to fill in.

There’s been no change to the expected size of this swell, with the strong frontal progression linked to it breaking down South-West of Western Australia through Wednesday. The swell has performed well across Western Australia, with slow 1-2ft sets due under N/NW tending variable winds tomorrow, N/NW tending variable E Sunday.

Early next week looks tiny until we see a progression of strengthening mid-latitude storms moving in from the Bight, dipping south-east on approach to our state.

At this stage most of the swell generating activity looks to sit too far north of us early next week, but as the progression continues further east Wednesday, we should see the South Arm exposed to fetches of strong S/SW winds.

The polar activity doesn’t look especially strong and with this, moderate levels of mid-period S/SW swell are due from later Wednesday through Thursday, though the models diverge regarding the strength and intensity of the incoming activity.

We could see surf to 3-4ft across the South Arm Thursday but with strong W-W/SW winds, cleaner and easing Friday under N/NW offshores.

We’ll have to wait until next week to see how this progression pans.

Regardless, next weekend we’ve got a strong W/SW groundswell on the cards, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!