Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Fri July 26th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Pumping, sizeable E swell all week, biggest Wed, with generally light winds
• Easing size Sat with freshening northerlies (lay day)
• Smaller but still fun E/NE swell Sun with light/mod NW winds
• Fun small E/NE swell Mon-Wed with NW tending SW winds
• More S swell on the way mid-late next week

Small leftover surf on Saturday built strongly from the south on Sunday but was wind affected. Today is seeing better conditions with a still-strong mix of S and SE swells courtesy of a major low developing in the southern Tasman Sea.

This week (Jul 30 - Aug 2)

The synoptic charts are quite incredible. We’ve got a large, deep Tasman Low intensifying well to our north-east, and a broad ridge of high pressure well to the south-east is generating a broad squeeze between the two, the benefits of which are aimed fair and square into our swell window. 

The upshot is that we’ve got a five-day spell of pumping energy from the east-south-east. Whilst not perfectly aligned into our swell window, this fetch is perhaps better positioned for most surfers as it’ll provide a more user-friendly size range, holding in the 4-6ft range between Tuesday and Saturday morning, but with a couple of pulses that’ll push north into the 8ft range (sourced from the intensification off NZ's South Island, below). The main energy will probably arrive on Wednesday, peaking in the afternoon. 

Local winds look great too. The low is sufficiently far off the coast to not have a major bearing on local winds and weather, if anything we may see a brief period of S/SE winds on Tuesday and early Wednesday, but this will mainly be across northern regions. Otherwise, a slow moving ridge of high pressure will create light winds all week.

All in all, it’s a great period to be spent looking for solid, juicy east coast waves at size, with great conditions. Get out and into it.

This weekend (Aug 2 - 3)

Wave heights will ease into the weekend though not completely bottom out as the Tasman Low will remain active in the central Tasman Sea for a few days yet. 

The  main issue this weekend will be strengthening pre-frontal northerlies on Saturday that will wipe out conditions at all but the most protected northern corners. 

Sunday looks better with lighter W/NW winds (post-front) and around 3ft of steady E/NE swell.

Next week (Aug 4 onwards)

The Tasman Low will remain active over the weekend so the first half of next week should see inconsistent 2-3ft surf from the E/NE, as winds freshen from the NW (Monday) and then swing SW (Tuesday) as a series of fronts cross the Tasmanian coast. There’ll be plenty of waves about. 

The second half of the week has a standard round of frontal systems trailing these fronts which will be accompanied by gusty offshore winds. So, there are plenty of options on the table for the long term period too.