Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 3rd May)

Best Days: Thursday, Friday morning for beginners, Saturday, late Sunday and Monday morning

Recap

Tiny waves yesterday morning with an offshore wind, with an increase in swell through the day as winds swung onshore.

This morning the swell has peaked at a solid 3-4ft with offshore winds which should persist most of the day. A new S/SW groundswell is also due later today and should keep 2-3ft sets hitting Clifton.

This week and weekend (May 4 – 7)

The frontal system responsible for today's W/SW and SW swell has moved off to the east, but we'll continue to see good sized surf tomorrow with a new S/SW swell.

This will be from a polar fetch of strong to gale-force S/SW winds projected through our southern swell window yesterday, keeping 2-3ft sets hitting Clifton tomorrow morning before easing into the afternoon.

Conditions look as if they'll be clean all day with a NW tending variable breeze, N/NW all day Friday as the swell fades from 1-1.5ft.

Our stormy and solid S'ly swell for the weekend is still on track.

Firstly on Saturday though a sneaky S/SE groundswell is showing on the charts, but the source of this swell is flukey. A fetch of storm-force S/SE winds on the polar shelf will south of New Zealand today will be just within our swell window.

If we're lucky we may see inconsistent 1-2ft sets on Saturday with offshore N/NW winds.

Moving into Sunday though, and a strong front spawning off a vigorous polar frontal progression will intensify and stall off our East Coast Sunday, directing a fetch of strong to gale-force S/SE winds into the South Arm.

The swell and winds will arrive together through Sunday, with a building stormy swell towards 4-5ft later in the day with strong S'ly winds, easing back from 3-5ft Monday as S'ly winds persist.

The swell will continue to drop Tuesday as the low weakens but winds aren't due to swing offshore until Wednesday with tiny leftovers on the coast.

Longer term there's nothing major on the cards, but more on this Friday.