Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 26th January)

Best Days: Northern corners Sunday afternoon, Monday, Tuesday morning southern corners, Thursday and Friday

Recap

Tiny levels of swell yesterday, increasing a touch today out of the north-east with 1-2ft sets showing across magnets.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This weekend and next week (Jan 27 – Feb 2)

From this weekend and more so into next week we've got a very exciting and dynamic forecast period on the cards.

We'll see a moderate sized N/NE windswell event develop, followed by a S'ly windswell and then strong E/NE groundswell.

So firstly, over the coming days we'll see a strengthening fetch of N/NE winds developing down our coast as a strong high in the Tasman Sea is squeezed by a surface trough approaching from the west.

Tomorrow is only expected to be small and around 1-2ft again, but through Sunday we'll see a more noticeable increase in size, only 2ft+ early but pulsing upwards towards 4ft by dark though with strengthening N/NE winds.

A peak in size is due Monday when winds reach their maturity just before the trough moves east and across us.

North-east magnets should be coming in at 3-5ft and a morning N/NW breeze is due to swing more NW ahead of an abrupt S/SE change.

The trough will linger off our coast Tuesday but only be weak, with an average increase in S/SE windswell to 3ft or so along with poor S/SE winds. The N/NE windswell will still be around, but dropping rapidly from 3ft at magnets.

On the top side of the high in the Tasman Sea, a deepening tropical low and possible cyclone will drift south and squeeze the northern flank of the high.

This will direct a fetch of strengthen E/NE winds ideally through our eastern swell window, with the low due to continue drifting south and across New Zealand mid-next week.

With this we'll see building levels of E/NE swell Thursday ahead of a strong groundswell pulse late Thursday, peaking Friday morning.

We should see open beaches building to 4ft by later Thursday, peaking Friday to 5-6ft.

There'll also be some new S'ly swell in the mix from a strengthening of S'ly winds off our coast Wednesday and Thursday, but the size looks limited to the 5ft range.

Winds through this E/NE groundswell even will be favourable and SW each morning, swinging more S'ly each day.

We'll put the final touches on this forecast Monday though, so check back then for the latest update. Have a great weekend!