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

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr) 

• Small S swells Tues as high pressure moves into the Tasman
• Small NE swell Thurs, building into Fri with offshore winds
• Easing surf Sat
• Possibly building surf Sun as low pressure trough forms off NSW Coast
• Likely significant E swells next week as low drifts in Tasman- low confidence in specifics, check back Wed for latest updates 

Recap

Small S swells yesterday supplied 1-2ft surf at S facing beaches with light W’ly winds. Today is seeing larger 2-3ft surf at S facing beaches with winds shifting from W to SW-S.

This week and next week (May27- June 7)

Lovely late autumn conditions as high pressure drifts across NSW bringing light winds and settled conditions through the first half of the week. A pair of weak cold fronts are expected to pass over Tasmania in the short term, generating minor S swells which will overlap with the last pulses coming from the polar low now SE of New Zealand. A dynamic, troughy pattern looks set to unfold over the weekend. Read on for details.

In the short run a small blend of S/SE groundswell and minor S swell offers up some 2ft surf through tomorrow with an offshore flow under W’ly ridging. Winds will swing between W/NW and NW with variable periods during the day.

Minor surf Wed with a tiny blend of S and NE swells barely reaching 1-1.5ft feet under continuing NW winds.

We should see a little more action Thurs as pre-frontal N’ly winds begin to freshen and NE windswell starts to build. Most of that fetch will be off axis (NW-N/NW) but we should see surf build to 2ft in the a’noon.

Fri looks a better bet as the fetch matures off the South Coast of NSW as a cold front arrives from the W. Expect surf to 3-4ft with NW winds shifting W as the front pushes through. Easing surf will occur in the a’noon as the fetch gets shunted eastwards.

Easing swells through Sat under fresh offshore W/SW-SW winds.

Sunday is a different story. We mentioned on Fri a trough deepening off the QLD coast. Models are now favouring a trough moving off the NSW South Coast and deepening, possibly later Sat or into Sun and forming mutliple low centres (see below). Depending on the positioning of the trough and a potential surface low we could see an increase in onshore winds and E-E/NE swell through Sun (ECMWF resolution) or offshore winds and small SE swells building later in the day or into Mon (GFS). Confidence in model outputs is low so check back Wed for updates. 

Uncertain outlook due to the model divergence over the weekend. It’s likely we will see E’ly swell of some significance early next week as the trough or potential low drifts SE across the Tasman. These short range features look to dominate the Tasman early next week with the main southern storm track continuing to develop in the NZ corridor aimed at Pacific targets.

Models have been all over the place over the weekend and with such poor run to run and model to model consistency we’ll need to watch and wait for guidance into next week before we can have any reasonable confidence in the surf outlook.

Check back Wed and we’ll update with all the latest information.

Seeya then.