Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri Oct 7th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• NE windswell leftovers Sat, with favourable winds
• Small leftovers Sun with S’ly winds
• Slight kick in NE swell Mon
• Small S swell Tues
• Building E/NE swell from Wed next week, persisting into Fri
• Overlapping NE windswell Thurs/Fri, potentially sizey, check back Mon for updates

Recap

Plenty of NE swell in the water through yesterday with size building into the 6-8ft range. Similar size has built further into today with 8ft or bigger surf with mod N’ly winds, now beginning to tend more NW as swell slowly eases.

This weekend and next week (Oct7-Oct 14)

No great change to the weekend f/cast. Strong NE windswell is on an easing trend as the fetch gets shunted away by an approaching front and developing low off the NSW Coast. 

Winds look great tomorrow as the front pushes through with NW-W winds before they tend SW to S in the a’noon in the wake of the front. Leftover NE swell will see some still strong 4-5ft sets, easing down quite quickly though the day.

Into Sunday and the easing trend continues with small leftovers in the 2ft range pad out the day. Not very inviting under mod/fresh S’ly winds as a low winds up off the NSW South Coast with a fetch just located too far North to be a useful swell generator for Tasmania.

Offshore winds are expected Mon as a front passes by and a new high moves towards Tas. Unfortunately, only small surf is expected- a small signal of E/NE-NE swell from an infeed into the Tasman low. That should see a few 2ft sets through the morning.

S swell from the passage of a front and polar low well to the south Sun/Mon should supply a few 2-3ft sets at S facing beaches Tues with offshore winds tending NE in the a’noon as the high moves out into the Tasman.

From mid week we’ll see a mix of E/NE swell from a deep E’ly fetch in the South Pacific that will supply some 2-3ft surf through Wed into Thurs under a freshening N’ly to NE’ly flow. 

Models now show this NE flow developing into another powerful fetch as a mid-latitude low and trough system approach from the West later next week (see below). Under current modelling that is likely to see another sizey NE swell for East Coast Tasmania, building into the 5-6ft range and possibly reaching 6-8ft into Fri. Confidence is low this far out on specifics but the broad scale pattern looks reliable so pencil in another large NE swell for later next week, likely cleaning up and easing quickly over the weekend as the low and front push through, bringing offshore winds.

Check back Mon for the latest update and have a great weekend!