Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Guy Dixon (issued Monday 18th April)

Best Days: Saturday and Sunday.

Recap: 

Saturday was a fairly slow day with very little in the way of surf. Sunday held better prospects in terms of size, with the surf building to a solid 3-5ft by the afternoon. Northwesterly breezes led to clean conditions during the morning, before tending onshore as the swell increased.

Today is the day though. We are moving off the back of the swell but are still seeing sets in the 3-4ft range under persisting northwesterly breezes.

This week (Tuesday 19th - Friday 22nd) and weekend (Saturday 23rd - Sunday 24th):

Following the strong frontal progression which generated Sunday afternoon’s strong pulse, activity over the southern swell windows looks to be limited for the majority of the week.

As the long wave trough becomes less pronounced, a strong ridge over the Tasman looks to develop, setting up a blocking pattern and deflecting any frontal activity to the south. As a result, any fronts that attempt to traverse the Tasman are likely to have particularly poor alignment to the Tasmanian coast, making southerly swell potential over the coming week pretty negligible.

A local northerly fetch looks to develop overnight this evening however, as the pressure gradient tightens between a Tasman ridge and an approaching front.

By Tuesday morning, the southern extension of this fetch looks to have pushed offshore, however northeast facing beaches should still be picking up around 1-2ft of short range northeasterly windswell, fading fairly quickly throughout the day.

Breezes look to swing from northwesterly to northerly throughout the day, so these open beaches may suffer in terms of quality at times. Early-mid morning generally looks to be the best time for a wave.

Due to the blocking ridge that’s stubbornly occupying the Tasman sea, the fetches trailing this system are weak and poorly aligned so any southerly energy is not expected.

Usually in a scenario like this, we look to the Tasman ridge itself to become the main contributor of surf, but in this instance it doesn’t look to provide much swell of any significance. Instead background energy is expected to be the only source of swell, providing not much more than 1ft.

A northwesterly breeze looks to tend northerly on Wednesday, with Thursday likely to persist from the northwest for the majority of the day.

Fetches along the northern quadrants of this ridge look to tend more easterly and increase slightly to the northwest of New Zealand’s North Island from around Wednesday. This should provide a small increase in easterly trade energy late on Friday, more so into the weekend, but only modest with options around 1-2ft at open beaches.

This blocking pattern is due to break down into Friday, with a moderately sized west/southwesterly trailing fetch following a weak front through the southern swell window.

Southwesterly breezes are on the cards for Friday morning, with the afternoon session possibly seeing breezes tend light and variable.

The groundswell off the more substantial distant fetches at the base of this front is due to fill in across exposed south facing beaches on Saturday afternoon with sets in the 3ft+ range, easing during Sunday.

The weekend looks like the best opportunity for a decent wave with favourable westerly breezes tending west/northwesterly on Sunday.

More detail on Wednesday.