Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri 13 August)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small S swell Sat as polar low passes under Tas Fri
• Slow moving low provides S swell pulse late Mon, peaking Tues, leftovers Wed

Recap

Small amounts of NE windswell in the 1-2ft range provided some just rideable surf Thursday. Swell from this source has eased back but with a few tiny waves available at NE facing beaches.

This weekend (Aug 14-15) 

A deep low is now passing well to the south of Tasmania with an incredible broad fetch of severe gales covering a massive area south to 55S. The zonal nature of the fetch is very poorly aligned for NETAS. A better angled deep polar fetch is expected to generate some small S’ly swell through Sat. Fresh SW winds as the front/low passes the state on Sat are expected to tend NW in the wake of the front during the a’noon.

This swell eases back Sun with continuing NW to W winds.

Next week (Aug 16 onwards)

Coming hot on the heels of Fri/Sat’s large but zonal low another complex polar low fires up as it enters Tasmanian longitudes on Sun. This is another impressively large and complex system, with a double headed low centre forming in the deep southern ocean around 60S and a more proximate cold front fetch expected to push NE to be adjacent to Tasmania through Monday morning. The deeper southern fetch tied to the polar low then fires up and aggressively tracks almost due north towards Tasmania with gales and severe gales extending up to almost Tasmanian latitudes later Mon. The system then weakens and transits the Tasman through Tuesday and into Wed. 

With the more favourably angled S’ly swell and deep source fetch a quite solid swell is expected to impact the east coast. 

Surf is expected to build into the 2-3ft range at S facing beaches from mid-morning Mon. Tuesday looks much more solid with 4ft surf on offer at S exposed beaches. Winds will have some southerly component in them, being SW before the passage of the low brings more W’ly component winds, cleaning up conditions.

With the slower movement of the system in the deep Southern Ocean, Wed, now looks to have plenty of leftover 3-4ft energy from the S with W’ly winds tending WNW through the day. Leftover energy on Thursday should maintain some rideable waves in the 2ft range. 

Longer term and pre-frontal N’ly winds offer a chance of another small flush of NE windswell next weekend but that is too far away to have any confidence. Check back Mon and we’ll take a fresh look at it.