Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Mon Nov 27th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Building E/SE swells Wed with onshore winds
• Swells becoming large and stormy Thurs, peaking Fri as low hovers off East Coast
• Easing Sat AM with a new S swell building PM
• Large S swells Sun, holding Mon AM before slowly easing
• Easing swells Tues, small for the rest of next week

Recap

Sizey E/NE-NE swell to 3-4ft on Sat with clean conditions and a late S’kly change as a low formed east of the state. That saw a steep rise in S swell Sun to 5-6ft at S facing beaches with strong S’lies. Size is moderating today with early size to 3-4ft dropping through the day and easing S’ly winds.

This week and next week (Nov 27- Dec 8)

We’ve got a large high well south of the Bight, with inland troughs linked to a small low East of Tasmania, which is moving away quite rapidly to the East. A complex trough of low pressure moving through the interior is expected to bud off a small surface low this week, somewhere off Southern NSW or the Gippsland coast. Most of the infeed into the system and resultant flow off the southern flank of the low is now focussed on Southern NSW and Tasmania (compared to Mondays notes). Large to XL swells this week are expected as the system forms and drifts south.

In the short run we’ll see easing swells tomorrow with a light S-SE flow as a large high approaches. It should be the smallest day of the f/cast period.

By Wed we’ll see a trough deepening in interior NSW/Vic and an infeed into the trough bringing increasing E-E/SE swells. Only the weaker winds will be in the swell window so expect surf to build to 3ft under mod E/SE winds.

Thursday sees a much larger increase as a trough buds off a low somewhere near the NSW/Vic border which then drifts south of the Gippsland coast with strong winds to gales off the southern Flank. Under E’ly strong winds we’ll see stormy surf become large through Thursday, likely building into the 6ft+ range.

Low pressure trough off Gippsland brings large stormy swells later this week

Surf increases further into Fri as the low continues to drift south with surf to 8-10ft likely under continuing strong E-E/NE winds. It’ll be hard to find a protected spot to surf.

By the weekend the low will be moving away but an easing trend Sat morning will be cut short by a frontal system re-invigorating the low with a strong fetch of S’y winds seeing a rapid building trend in new S swell thrugh the a’noon, likely up into the 4-5ft range.

With the reinvigorated low remains slow moving east of Tasmania Sun we’ll see large S swell to 6-8ft under fresh S’lies, slowly easing Mon with winds improving as the low moves away.

The rest of the week looks small and weak as the low dissipates and weak pressure gradients occupy the Tasman.

Check back Wed and we’ll see how it’s shaping up.