Eastern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed March 6th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing swells Thurs/Fri
• NE windswell next weekend, peaking Sun
• Small S pulses Wed/Thurs next week
• Small E/NE swells filtering down from tropics from Wed next week

Recap

Strong S swells yesterday to 6ft+ at S facing beaches with NW tending NNE winds. Today has seen an easing in S swell with a reinforcing S/SE swell to 3-4ft at S exposed breaks with W-W/NW winds tending N/NW then W/SW as a front passed to the south of the state. 

This week and next week (Mar6 -Mar15) 

The winter-calibre low is now on the other side of New Zealand with a strong high pressure belt expected to become dominant through the medium term. We currently have a weaker cell in the Tasman, with a much stronger cell entering the Bight. This dominant high pressure belt will set up a long, broad tradewind fetch through the Coral Sea, extending at times into the Northern Tasman and South Pacific. Frontal activity to the south is shunted away from the Tasman by the downstream blocking high pattern so only minor, flukey S swells may show through the f/cast period. Otherwise, we’re looking at some NE windswell over the weekend then E’ly quadrant swells, solid in the sub-tropics, grading smaller into NETas next week. 

In the short run and we’ll see S/SE swell easing right back tomorrow, with early 2-3ft sets dropping back to less than 2ft during the day, with some small short range S swell in the mix from the passing front. The front and new high brings light S-SE winds tending E’ly at light paces during the day.

High pressure shift E of Tas on Fri with winds turning N’ly at light paces and tiny surf.

N’lies then increase in the swell window over the weekend as high pressure drifts into the Tasman Sea (see below) bringing increasing NE windswell from Sat a'noon. Expect winds to freshen through Sat with surf building from tiny to 2-3ft during the a’noon.

Source of NE windswell over the weekend

Size increases further into Sun with winds from the N/NW shifting NW then W before a S’ly change as a trough and front move across the state. Get in early for clean 3-4ft surf, easing during the day.

Into next week and it looks like a small NE swell persists as a fresh high moves into the Tasman and N-NE winds rebuild off the Gippsland to Bass Strait region. No great size is expected, just small, fun in the 2ft range with N’ly winds.

Another front Tues brings a quick S’ly change tending SE through the day with small S swells to 1-2ft and some minor NE swell from the Tasman to similar sizes. 

From Wed we should start to see small, fun levels of E/NE swell filtering down from the tradewind band in the South Pacific. We’ll pencil in 2-3ft surf from Wed-Fri and see how it looks on Fri.

Small S swells may also be on the menu late next week as a minor front pushes NE past Tasmania.

Let’s see how it looks on Fri.