Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Thursday 21st March)

Best Days: Fri PM/Sat AM: fun NE swell, mainly light winds. Wed: solid S'ly swell, improving conditions as winds ease. Thurs: smaller S'ly swell with light winds. 

This week and weekend (Mar 22 - 24)

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*this week's Forecaster Notes will be occasionally brief and erratic, as Craig is on annual leave - they’ll be updated Tues/Thurs/Sun - to receive notification when they’re updated, please update your account preferences*

Small leftover surf today will build slightly into Friday afternoon, courtesy of a new NE swell generated by a modest infeed into a broad Tasman trough over the last few days (see below, showing its last phase of energy).

No major size is expected but exposed beaches as the fetch is a reasonable distance from our coast, slightly off-axis and not particularly strong, but we’ll see intermittent 2ft+ sets at swell magnets later Friday and into Saturday.

Winds will be light through this time but freshening NE breezes are expected through the middle of Saturday and into the afternoon as a pre-frontal trough approaches from the west. 

Wave heights will ease into Saturday afternoon and then remain small through Sunday. So make the most of the early session Saturday.

However, a small flush of SE swell (just the odd 2ft set) will replace the easing NE swell on Sunday, thanks to a brief intensification of SE winds off the southern flank of the southern extent of the Tasman trough, around Friday and Saturday. This small peaky swell combo will be accompanied with light offshore winds to finish the weekend. 

Next week (May 25 onwards)

A series of powerful, complex lows will cross the Tasmanian region early next week, strengthening N’ly tending W’ly winds on Monday morning that could reach gale to storm force strength. We may see a small peaky N’ly windswell on Monday but conditions will be very blustery. 

The synoptics for this period look incredible but unfortunately most of the swell generation will happen on the wrong side of Tasmania, and most of the fetch will be W’ly or SW, so we’ll see much smaller S’ly swells bending up the coast (in stark contrast to very large stormy swells across the southern and western coasts). 

I’m not confident on a great deal of size for Tuesday, though we will see a small building trend out of the south, with strong to gale force W tending SW winds accompanying. Instead, Wednesday looks like it’ll see a healthy flush of S’ly swell around 4ft at exposed south facing beaches, and much lighter offshore winds as the fronts clear to the east.  Expect smaller surf at beaches not open to the south. 

The long term synoptic charts suggest a return to small surf conditions for the rest of the week and next weekend too, though there are a few thing s brewing in the Tasman Sea for the week after that.

More in Sunday’s update.