Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 16th January)

Best Days: Saturday in protected spots, Sunday morning in protected spots, early Monday, Tuesday

Recap

Yesterday was poor with a junky S'ly and SE swell to 2-3ft with onshore S/SW to SE winds.

Today conditions cleaned up nicely but only a tiny 1-1.5ft of swell was leftover across Clifton.

This weekend and next week (Jan 17 -23)

Our strong pulses of W/SW and SW groundswell are still on track for the weekend, with satellite observations confirming a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds being generated in our western swell window yesterday.

The front generating this fetch has since weakened and will start to push across us this evening. The front will be very slow moving and a secondary intensification tomorrow will see a stronger fetch of severe-gale W/SW winds generated in our south-western swell window.

What should result is an initial increase in W/SW swell tomorrow from 2ft+ early to 3-4ft+ by dark, with Sunday seeing much larger 4-5ft sets.

The frontal system should start to move off to the east Sunday evening, with a steady drop in size due into Monday from 3-4ft.

Winds tomorrow should be fresh to strong from the W/NW tending W'ly, while Sunday is likely to see W'ly tending W/SW and then SW breezes.

Monday morning looks a little dicey but we should see local effects steer winds NW early before the gradient SW'ly kicks in mid-morning.

While the SW swell will continue to fade into Tuesday a new S/SE swell is due to fill in, generated on the bottom of the frontal progression pushing across us over the weekend. A broad fetch of strong S/SE winds should be projected towards us, wrapping up into the parent system, generating a good 2-3ft of S/SE swell for Tuesday morning (bigger at more exposed breaks)

Winds for this swell won't be great, but workable with a fresh N'ly tending strong N/NE breeze due. The swell should fade through the day with small 1-2ft leftovers due Wednesday.

Longer term there's nothing too major on the cards at this stage until next weekend, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!