A deep low just to the East of Tasmania is now slowly weakening and moving away, maintaining a westerly flow across the region. A trough line linked to the low extends from the Tasman Sea up into the Coral Sea past New Caledonia and over the next few days this trough deepens as it slowly moves East, activating an incredibly wide fetch of E to NE winds infeeding into it.

The multiple fetches coming off a Tasman low near New Zealand anchored by a high just east of Tasmania are now starting to wane. Current ASCAT (satellite windspeed) passes show a weakening fetch of SE winds in the Central/Northern Tasman and a thin fetch of strong winds out of Cook Strait. That will lead to a slow easing trend through tomorrow, accelerating into Fri and the start of the week-end.

Surf prospects are definitely looking juicier for next week with a much more substantial fetch of S-SE winds set up on the Eastern side of the Tasman Sea as the decaying low reforms near New Zealand, aiming up several useful fetches back to the East Coast.

We’ve finally come to a low spot in the current La Niña phase we are in with energy being dialled right back this week.  The high pressure belt is moving at a more typical northerly latitude over interior Australia and with weaker, more mobile high pressure moving over the interior and into the Tasman, we are looking at a period of N’ly biased winds with W’ly oriented fronts being quickly shunted across the Tasman.