Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 23rd October)

Best Days: Saturday morning, early Sunday, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning

Recap

It seems as yesterday's swell was running a little late with only 1-2ft waves reported across Clifton early, but the swell kicked through the day and winds remained favourable until the early-mid afternoon before sea breezes kicked in.

Today the swell was easing from a clean 2-3ft with morning offshores, but S/SE sea breezes have since developed.

This weekend (Oct 24 – 25)

Small surf is due tomorrow, but a reinforcing W/SW swell should keep fun 2ft sets hitting Clifton through the day with NW winds giving into S/SE sea breezes.

Sunday morning's fresh pulse of SW swell has been upgraded a touch, with the frontal system producing it looking a little better today.

This polar low will pass under us this evening, producing a fun SW pulse (peaking overnight Saturday) and easing from 2ft to possibly 3ft at dawn Sunday, down quickly through the day back to 1-2ft.

Winds should be good most of the day with a N/NW offshore, tending variable ahead of possible late afternoon sea breezes.

Next week onwards (Oct 26 onwards)

Monday and Tuesday's strong kick in S/SW groundswell was looking strong right up until this morning, when the forecast weather models changed its structure a little.

In saying this we're still looking at a strong increase in size, just not to the expectations of Monday and Wednesday.

The polar frontal progression generating the swell will aim a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds through our south-western swell window followed by a weaker but better aligned fetch of SW gales through our southern swell window.

We can then expect a mix of building SW and S/SW swell through Monday, reaching 3ft later in the day but with strong S/SW winds, peaking early Tuesday to 3-4ft across Clifton.

Winds are still looking to go variable overnight Monday leaving clean but possibly slightly lumpy conditions for Tuesday morning, with winds increasing from the E/NE through the afternoon.

Wednesday will be much smaller with easing 2ft sets under early NW tending onshore winds.

Into Thursday another strong pulse of SW groundswell is due, but winds look to spoil the party.

A very strong and powerful polar low is forecast to produce a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W'ly winds along the polar shelf early next week, generating a moderate to large sized S/SW groundswell for Thursday peaking to 3-5ft across Clifton.

Unfortunately a surface trough lingering over Victoria looks to drift south bringing onshore SW to SE winds to the South Arm, but we'll confirm this on Monday. In the meantime have a great weekend!