Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed Oct 6)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Mostly small/tiny surf for the rest of the week and weekend
• Small uptick in S swell Mon
• Likely NE/ENE swell Wed next week, possibly more surf depending on position of low in Tasman sea. Stay tuned for revisions.

Recap

Small fun waves have been on offer in NETAS since Mon’s f/cast notes with Tuesday seeing clean 2-3ft surf from the ESE, easing back today into the 2ft range with variable winds now tending light N’ly.

This week and week (Oct4-Oct 15)

The Spring pattern continues with weak mobile high pressure over NSW, extending into the Tasman sea and a series of fronts tied to a complex area  of low pressure to the SE and SW of Tasmania. Unfortunately, these fronts are mostly too high in latitude and too zonal in alignment (W-E) to produce much in the way of surf for NETas this week. 

A front passing through on Thurs brings a cool change but not much surf, possibly a slight uptick in S swell to the 1-2ft range later in the day, as winds ease from the W/SW.

A front approaching later Fri and passing through on Sat is even more rapid and zonal, so surf is likely to go tiny to flat later Fri and over the weekend.

Things get more interesting next week, as instability in the Tasman sea leads to some surf potential for the East coast of Tas.

A front passing on Mon, brings SW to S winds, with the fetch adjacent to the state seeing a small uptick in S swell. Likely in the 2ft range.

Surf potential from there hinges on a trough forming off the NSW coast and a possible surface low forming in the trough line.  While the surface low is possibly  too far north to be a swell produce for NETas, a further infeed of NE winds into a trough off the South Coast of NSW is likely to see NE swell build on Wed, possibly into the 3-4ft range. Some models do drift the low further south with a well aimed fetch of E winds off the southern flank of the low producing swell during Thurs, possibly sizey.

Models still differ on the evolution and position of the low so we’ll need to come back Fri before we make any further calls.

Check back then for a full update.