Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Guy Dixon (issued Monday 16th May)

Best Days: Thursday and Friday at south facing beaches.

Recap: 

There wasn’t much swell to work with over the weekend with sets struggling to exceed 1ft. Today, there was a touch more size, but still barely surfable with peaks just over 1ft. Conditions have remained clean each day under a westerly component breeze.

This week (Tuesday 17th - Friday 21st) and this weekend (Saturday 22nd - Sunday 23rd):

The outlook for swell remains pretty ordinary with the majority of the frontal activity moving in a zonal nature. This means that the swell generating fetches are moving in a west-east motion with terrible alignment to the east coast of Tasmania.

One particular system looks to develop into a cut-off low over the Tasman Sea on Tuesday, with southeasterly fetches developing along its southern quadrants late in the evening and into Wednesday.

A small southeasterly swell should build on Thursday as a result, providing options in the 1-2ft range at south facing beaches.

The next most significant system looks to move over the region later on Thursday, steering core winds upwards of 55kts off the southeastern coast. There are a few limiting factors to this system - the local nature, poor alignment and timing.

Despite the sheer intensity, the surf has limited daylight hours on Thursday to build, so south facing beaches should only build to around 1-2ft late on Thursday afternoon before night falls. Southwesterly trailing fetches should remain slow moving in the wake of this system however, allowing the surf to build to the 2-3ft range on Friday at exposed swell magnets.

On the plus side, conditions are likely to remain clean and well groomed due to persistent westerly component breezes (linked with the relentless frontal activity).

Otherwise, the surf looks to remain fairly dormant until early next week.

More detail on Wednesday.