Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 17th August)

Best Days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the weekend for beginners

Recap

Fun clean 2ft waves for Saturday morning ahead of a stronger kick in new SW groundswell through the afternoon which peaked overnight and then eased back from 2-3ft Sunday morning under favourable winds again.

Today's building swell was around 3ft this morning, but a stronger kick should have been seen this afternoon to the 4-6ft range.

This week (Aug 18 - 21)

The strong low responsible for today's building SW tending S/SW groundswell is currently moving off to the east aiming a fetch of weakening S/SW winds through our southern swell window.

This will keep plenty of S/SW swell hitting the coast tomorrow morning, likely in the 3-4ft+ range, dropping back to 2-3ft through the day.

Winds are looking dicey with a slight chance of an early W'ly but more likely W/SW winds, tending W/NW into the afternoon. So aim for a paddle after lunch.

Wednesday morning will be a low point in activity but there should still be 2ft sets on offer across Clifton, ahead of an afternoon increase in SW groundswell. This will be generated by a fetch of pre-frontal W/NW gales and should kick Clifton to 2-3ft later in the day with early W/NW tending SW winds.

A much stronger S/SW groundswell is due Thursday though from a post-frontal fetch of broad gale to severe-gale SW winds developing perfectly in our southern swell window.

The swell should peak Thursday to a strong 3-5ft across Clifton before easing into the afternoon and then down further Friday from 2-3ft. Winds will be good and from the N/NW tending N/NE Thursday and then N/NW-N'ly Friday.

Into the weekend only small levels of background swell are due to an infrequent 1ft to occasionally 2ft.

Into early next week some weak SE windswell may be seen, but the storm track will fire back up through the week, generating some better W/SW groundswell from mid-week. More on this Wednesday though.