Eastern Tasmanian Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Mon Dec 9th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Tiny swells Tues into Wed
• Small S groundswell pulse Thurs PM extending into Fri
• Easing swells for the weekend
• NE windswell possible early next week, possibly sizey, check back Wed for the latest

Recap  

Small NE swells to 1-2ft Sat with W’ly winds. Sun was mostly tiny with a minor bump in S swell at S facing beaches and W-NW winds. Tiny today with knee high surf and mod/fresh W-W/NW winds.

This weekend and next week (Dec4- Dec13)

A very weak troughy pattern is unfolding this week with a weak high pressure (1016hPa) cell moving into the Tasman today as a trough stalls about the Far North Coast and a zonal W’ly pattern extends up over Tasmania. Another trough tomorrow brings a shallow S’ly change which again before more W’ly ridging. In short, no major swells expected. There is a deep low expected to scoot through the lower Tasman, weakening as it does so which may offer some flukey S swell at S swell magnets Thurs/Fri. Other than that, a low energy grovel is all that is on the menu. Nothing much on offer next week either, at this stage. Read on, if that outlook is not too depressing. 

In the short run, there’s not much to look forwards too with tiny/flat surf through Tues under NW/SW winds before a brief shallow S/SE change.

Same again Wed with freshening pre-frontal W/NW winds and a small amount of NE windswell wrap from winds out of Bass Strait. 

As mentioned, we’ll see a flukey S groundswell generated by a fast moving compact low with severe gale force winds tracking into the lower Tasman Wed/Thurs (see below). The system gets shunted SE and weakens as it enters the Tasman so we’ll keep expectations pegged low. We should still see 2-3ft surf across Thurs a’noon and persisting into Fri morning before easing under a mod/fresh offshore W-W/NW flow.

Into the weekend and we should see surf ease right back into Sat, although a small front may offer up some weak S swell to 2ft at S facing beaches.

Sun looks tiny.

Next week looks tricky with more troughs moving NE of Tasmania and tricky winds.

Good odds we’ll see a NE flow develop into Mon which could see some sizey NE windswell building Mon, holding into Tues morning before easing rapidly as a front pushes through. We’ll see how that looks on Wed.

Seeya then.