Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday April 18th)

Best Days: Wednesday, Thursday morning, Sunday south magnets

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small, inconsistent E/NE swell building later tomorrow but more so Wed, easing quickly Thu
• Mod-fresh W/NW winds Wed, fresh W/SW tending S Thu
• Small, mid-period S swell Thu PM, easing Fri with morning NW winds
• Inconsistent S groundswell Sun with W tending NE winds

Recap

A good pulse of S’ly swell through Saturday, cleaner but smaller and easing yesterday across the south magnets.

This week and weekend (Apr 19 - 24)

Looking at the week ahead and we’ve got some small E/NE swell due across the swell magnets ahead of some small, weak S’ly swell into the end of the week and weekend.

The source of the E/NE swell is a small low squeezing a high in the Tasman Sea, generating a fetch of strong to near gale-force E’ly winds off New Zealand’s North Island.

We may see a small hint of energy building tomorrow to 1-2ft, but come Wednesday the peak of the swell is due with inconsistent 2ft to sometimes 3ft sets expected, peaking into the afternoon. The swell will ease from a similar size Thursday but be tiny into the afternoon.

Winds will be good to great with at the peak of the swell with a moderate to fresh W/NW’ly due most of Wednesday (tending variable across more southern locations), with Thursday seeing W/SW tending S’ly breeze as a cold front pushes up past us.

The cold front will be spawning off a strong polar low, with a much weaker fetch of strong SW winds due to be generated in our swell window Thursday. There’ll be some very inconsistent, small S’ly groundswell in the mix Thursday but mid-period energy will be most visible, building to 2-3ft on the south magnets into the afternoon but with that average wind.

Friday looks cleaner but the swell will be fading from 2ft max.

Into the weekend there’ll continue to be plenty of strong polar frontal activity in our swell window but it’ll be mostly too zonal to generate any major size. Sunday is the best chance for a wave with a refracted S’ly groundswell possibly providing 2-3ft sets on the south magnets.

Longer term there’s nothing too major on the cards besides some localised NE windswell but more on this Wednesday.