Eastern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Wed Aug 7th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Minor S'ly swell Thurs
• Small S swell extends into Fri with more NW-W winds
• Tiny over the weekend, just a small chance of marginal NE windswell Sat PM
• Small into next week, possibly small NE windswell Tues PM/Wed
• Small E/NE swell possible later next week

Recap

Small E’ly swells hung in there in the 1-2ft range yesterday under W/SW winds. Remarkably there is still some small, just rideable 1 occ. 2ft surf on offer today with offshore winds.

This week and next week (Aug 7-16)

Nice and quiet in the Tasman Sea after last weeks monster low. A trough of low pressure has cleared the NSW coast and a large area of high pressure is drifting over NSW into the Tasman, expected to strengthen and be reinforced by another area of high pressure drifting over the continent. A low is transiting the lower Tasman, while the remnants of the Tasman are drifting Eastwards in the South Pacific. Zonal fronts under Tasmania are combining with high pressure over the continent to supply W’ly ridging. Over the weekend and next week the large high complex builds a broad E’ly fetch through the South Pacific and into the Coral Sea, generating sizey E swells for the sub-tropics with smaller E/NE swells filtering down to temperate NSW and eventually supplying some small NE swell to NETas.

In the short run, not much action on the radar. Mod/fresh NW-W/NW winds and tiny swells with a minor bump in S swell just showing at S facing beaches in the 1 occ. 2ft range.

Similar winds for Fri with gusty W/NW breezes developing, tending W’ly at times. Thursdays bump in S swell extends into Fri with a slight reinforcing pulse of S/SE swell. It looks a bit better than it did on Mon but we’re still only expecting 2ft surf tops so keep expectations low.

Into the weekend and tiny waves are expected with continuing mod/fresh NW-W’ly winds. Sat a’noon looks the best bet for a rideable wave with some small NE windswell possibly being rideable. Again, keep expectations pegged very low and don’t burn fuel chasing it.

No let up to the NW-W flow next week as high pressure moves into the Tasman. We should see a slightly more N’ly flow develop through Mon/Tues off the coast of southern NSW and with it some minor NE windswell. We’ll finesse it on Fri but at this stage it’s still unlikely to be over 2ft later Tues into Wed.

Source of minor NE windswell next week

After that we’ll be hoping  see some more small NE-E/NE swell coming down from the Tasman later in the week as a fetch drops southwards.

We’ll peg it now for 1-2ft and see how it looks on Fri.

Seeya then.