Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri Sep 16th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• New round of NE windswell beginning Thurs with strong pulses Fri/Sat with improving winds
• Easing quickly Sun
• Looks like small surf early next week apart from a tiny pulse of S swell Mon
• Another round of chunky NE swell likely Thurs/Fri

Recap

NE windswell built yesterday into the 3ft range with fresh N to NE winds. Today has seen a further increase into the 5-6ft range (pumping) with mod/fresh NE winds tending NW through the day. 

This weekend and next week (Sep 16- 23)

Still, no major change to the weekend f/cast. A complex low linked to multiple troughs and cold fronts is now approaching from SW of Tasmania. A main coastal trough linked to an Indian Ocean NW cloud band is clearing the area with a mostly NW flow across the weekend and a slowly easing NE swell on tap.

Get in Sat for the last of it, with size in the 4ft range, easing down to 3ft during the day and NW winds, possibly tending more NNW in the a’noon and freshening as a front sweeps up at high latitudes. 

Sunday will be mopping up small leftovers with some early 2 footers, easing back to 1-2ft during the day, clean under W/NW to W winds.

Into next week and we’re looking at ankle snappers from Mon-Wed as a weak blocking pattern sets up in the Tasman with mostly offshore winds through Mon-Tues.

From Wed things start to get more interesting.An inland troughs starts to coalesce into an inland low, as an upper trough moves into the area. That energises the NE infeed as high pressure drifts into the Tasman. We should start to see a small increase in NE windswell late Wed into the 2ft range.

A much more solid lift in wave heights is on the cards for Thurs. With NE winds increasing in strength off the NSW South Coast we’ll see surf build into the 4ft range with mod/fresh N to NE winds accompanying the swell.

Looks good for this size to hold into Fri with size to 4ft, slowly easing through he day. Winds look best early under a NW flow with a trough bringing light SSE-SE winds through the day.

Into the medium term and this trough may deepen through Fri into next weekend. That may see a SE fetch develop adjacent to Tasmania with winds and swell from the same direction.

Confidence is low this far out with so much model divergence but we’ll flag a swell in the 3-4ft range Fri/Sat, with SE winds.

In the mean time the incredible amount of troughiness across the Island continent, and extending into the Tasman and South Pacific means low confidence in synoptic outcomes- there is simply too much atmospheric instability for models to deal with on medium scale time horizons.

In short, it’s likely we’ll see significant revisions come Mon, so check back then for the latest .

Until then, have a great weekend!