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

Best Days: Late tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday

Recap

Reports weren't too impressive from the weekend with tiny 1-1.5ft waves both Saturday and today, with Sunday starting even smaller, with a new groundswell due into the afternoon seemingly not making an impact? Cape Sorell readings are favourable so there should have been a bit more size upwards of 2ft yesterday afternoon.

This week (Apr 18 - 21)

Tomorrow is expected to start tiny with 1ft sets but later in the day a new W/SW groundswell should be seen across Clifton.

As touched on Friday, this swell will be west and not too significant, produced by a strong but zonal pre-frontal fetch of gale to severe-gale W/NW winds over the weekend. Clifton might see 2ft waves later in the day with a variable breeze after morning offshores.

Of much greater importance is Wednesday's large and powerful W/SW groundswell. Immediately behind the pre-frontal fetch generating later tomorrow's swell was an impressive fetch of storm-force W/SW winds.

This fetch formed around an intense low which developed in our far swell window but has since moved closer towards us while weakening slightly.

This will help the consistency of the in-between sets with Clifton due to come in around a consistent 3ft with less consistent 4-5ft sets Wednseday morning, easing later in the day and further Thursday from 2ft to occasionally 3ft.

Conditions are looking great tomorrow with light offshore N/NW winds, tending variable ahead of late sea breezes, similar into Thursday.

Into the end of the week and weekend, some new W/SW groundswell energy is due, but from north riding mid-latitude fronts south-west of WA.

This isn't ideal at all for us with the swell being too west in nature to generate any major size.

We may see 1-2ft sets later Friday, while a secondary swell for Sunday looks better, with stronger storm-force W/NW winds generated on the polar shelf in our southern swell window.

A good increase to 2ft to possibly 3ft is due into Sunday afternoon with all day offshore winds. We'll have a closer look at this swell on Wednesday though.