Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri Sep 30th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• SE swell Fri with SE winds
• Fun sized ESE swell Sat with light winds
• Small leftovers Sun with offshore winds
• Nice pulse of E swell Mon with light winds
• Pulses of long period S and SSE swell Tues-Thurs
• Tracking potential for large NE swell from Thurs-Sat next week, stay tuned for updates Mon

Recap

Surf has been fun since the last F/cast with some 3ft SE swell yesterday and lighter than expected S-SE winds. Today has continued the theme but with bigger 3-4ft surf from the SE-ESE and light SE winds providing OK surface conditions. 

This weekend and next week (Sep 30-Oct 7)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. Wind and swell regimens will be dominated by the low in the Tasman, which is now retreating towards the North Island with a large (1037hPa) high south of Tasmania. Pressure gradients do slowly ease over the weekend as the high relaxes over warm Tasman sea waters and the low sets up near the North Island. 

Variable winds are on offer both days of the weekend as high pressure drifts just to the East of Tasmania and slowly fills in. E swell from the bottom end of the fetch around the current Tasman low supplies fun sized 3ft surf through Sat.

With the fetch easing off over the weekend Sunday will see smaller 2-3ft surf, easing back further during the day under light winds.

Into next week and a small kick in E swell from a Cook trait fetch sees some fun 2ft sets through Mon under light W winds.

From Tues we will see a new pattern kick in, although there is a fair spread in model guidance so it’s likely we’ll see significant revisions when we come back Mon.

The basic pattern is another strong high moving at a very southerly latitude, this time with strong frontal activity ahead of it (see below). The fronts are expected to supply pulses of long period S swell from mid next week (see below) although local winds will likely be a problem.

The strong high pressure surge sees an increase in SSE swell through Tues into Thurs, although onshore winds look likely to be a problem, we should see size in the 3-4ft range.

From Thurs we’ll be looking at a developing N’ly fetch off the NSW Coast. Models have scaled back the strength of this fetch and it’s not so sweetly positioned inside the Tas swell window, but we’ll still see some significant size build through late Thurs, into Fri wth size building late Thurs into the 4ft range and peaking Fri in the 6ft range. Size eases slowly through next Sat as the fetch gets shunted away by an approaching cut-off low.

Check back Mon for the latest revisions and until then, have a great weekend!