Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed Oct 12th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Building E/NE swell from Wed next week, persisting into Fri
• Overlapping L to XL NE windswell Thurs/Fri, very sizey, winds tending W’ly through Fri as front pushes through
• Small easing swells Sat, becoming tiny Sun
• Quiet early next week with another NE swell on the radar for later next week, stay tuned for updates

Recap

NE windswell has started to build through the region since yesterday with with a small signal of 2ft swell yesterday now up into the 4-5ft range under freshening NE winds. More NE windswell is to come.

This week and next week (Oct12-Oct 21)

Small levels of background ENE’ly swell keeps chugging along this week. Despite some slow periods between pulses the ASCAT (satellite windspeed) passes shows a long, broad fetch of strong winds with gales embedded around a tropical depression. That leads to high confidence in continuing pulsey swell from that South Pacific source fetch. Closer to home a strong high between Tasmania and the South Island is being squeezed by an approaching trough series, front and cut-off low, which is seeing N to NE gales develop on the Tasmanian East Coast swell window. Large surf with onshore/sideshore gales develops Fri before a change brings offshore winds Fri into Sat. Light winds are expected for the weekend in the wake of the change.

Strong NE windswell dominates Thurs with fresh to gale force NE winds and a very, very large NE swell.  Even allowing for models overcooking it a notch we are still looking at surf building into the 10-12ft range during the day, possibly bigger. But it will be stormy and accompanied by local gales so finding a surfable spot will be unlikely.

Friday is a better bet with winds quickly turning W to W/NW through the early morning. Size in the 10ft+ range will ease down steadily through the day, but clean up rapidly under the influence of offshore winds. Size is likely to dip below 4-5ft by close of play.

Into the weekend and a mix of leftover NE windswell and long range E/NE swell from the South Pacific holds sets to an inconsistent 2-3ft, on Sat with offshore winds supplying groomed conditions.

Offshore winds continue Sunday with size around 2ft or less during the day. 

Next week kicks off with a couple of very small days. A compact but intense front/low races across the Lower Tasman Sun/Mon and this may provide a few traces of longer period S swell from Mon into Tues, but nothing more than 2ft at the most reliable S facing magnets. Tiny to flat elsewhere.

From Wed it’s likely we’ll another round of NE swell develop as (yet another!) inland low approaches from the West. This system looks to be sandwiched by twin high pressure systems in the Bight and Tasman Sea, with potential for a  strong E to NE fetch to develop proximate to the NSW Central and Mid North Coast (see below). Models are still divergent over outcomes with some runs placing the locus of the winds further north, making the potential NE swell a notch below the last couple of swell events, where he fetch has been right next to the Apple Isle.

Nonetheless we are still looking at a NE swell event building into the 3-4ft range next Thurs, bigger 4-6ft on Fri. Confidence in these specifics is low this far out so check back in on Fri and we’ll have a fresh update for you.

Seeyou then.