Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Guy Dixon (issued Monday 9th March)

Best Days: Saturday morning.

Recap: 

It wasn’t much of a day for surfing on Tuesday, with a lack of swell and southerly breeze which tended northeasterly throughout the day. Today however, we have a new northeasterly swell to around 2ft and building under a light northeasterly breeze. Good options across open beaches.

This week (Thursday 10th - Friday 11th) and weekend (Saturday 12th - Sunday 13th):

The northeasterly windswell that is in the water will peak today, with the southern extension of the fetch already pushing offshore limiting swell generation.

This fetch will be excluded to the east by a cut-off low which will move to the south of Tasmania throughout today. By Thursday morning, a small amount of southerly windswell should be breaking across the south swell magnets generated by local fetches associated with this low. As for size, the initial local swell should provide options in the 1-2ft range, building to around 2ft the more substantial energy fills in from west/southwesterly core fetches by the late afternoon, more likely overnight with the remnants fading from a similar size on Friday morning.

Southerly breezes look to slowly ease and tend easterly during the day.

As this system traverses the Tasman sea, its rapid easterly motion and poor alignment of swell generating fetches look to limit the amount of swell pretty heavily.

A much better source of energy looks to develop in the form of an increasing easterly fetch along the northern flanks of a building ridge from Thursday.

Easterly fetches look to gradually increase and tend east/northeasterly, with core winds of around 25-30kts.

Open beaches should build to around the 3ft range by Friday afternoon as a result, fading from a similar size on Saturday.

Unfortunately, Friday looks to be dominated by a light/moderate onshore breeze, however there is the potential for a workable wave as  breezes ease and the swell builds. Saturday morning has much better prospects for a light offshore breeze, tending light southeasterly later.

Next week (Monday 14th onward):

Each swell window then looks to become fairly dormant, with only hints of east/northeasterly trade energy filling in from a deepening dip over the south Pacific. By the time this energy reaches Tasmania, options look to be undersized and infrequent.

Models suggest a strong ridge to build over the southern Tasman, interacting with a potential developing low which may move south causing the pressure gradient to tighten from Monday.

At first, a local southerly airflow looks to provide an increase in size across the magnets, however the subsequent southeasterly airflow spanning the width of the Tasman sea has the potential to provide a very healthy kick in size for eastern Tasmania mid-late next week. More details on Friday.