Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 8th December)

Best Days: Wednesday at spots that like a NE wind and smallish swell, Saturday

Recap

The weekend was poor with tiny onshore waves from the S/SE Saturday that gathered more size into Sunday but remained well below par. Today winds swung offshore but a mix of SW and SE swell didn't amount to much above 1ft.

This week (Dec 9 - 12)

Tomorrow will be a day to miss as an onshore change moves through early morning and the swell remains tiny.

A slight kick in SW groundswell is due on Wednesday to 1-2ft, but again winds won't be good for Clifton, with other locations out of the South Arm the pick under a fresh E/NE tending NE breeze. There's a chance winds will tend N'ly across the South Arm through the morning, so keep an eye on the local wind observations if you're staying local.

Into Thursday another onshore change is due as a trough pushes across us but there's no real size expected to be left after Wednesday's groundswell eases away.

Friday should signal another lay day, but we've finally got some better groundswell on the cards for the weekend..

This weekend onwards (Dec 13 onwards)

We've finally got something to look forward too in the surf department. Over the coming week a strong but not overly impressive polar frontal progression will play out, initiated south-west of WA today.

An initial fetch of W/SW gales will set in motion an active sea state for a secondary stronger polar low to move over, aiming an additional fetch of severe-gales through our south-western swell window.

The low will weaken while tracking towards us but remain nicely in our swell window, producing a good strong SW groundswell for Saturday morning. This swell should peak at 2-3ft across Clifton. Winds should be favourable and offshore from the N'th tending N/NE but we'll review this again on Wednesday. Longer term we may see a new short-range W/SW swell early-mid next week but we'll look at this in more detail Wednesday.