Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 15th May)

Best Days: Tuesday, Friday

Recap

Clean fun waves Saturday morning with 2ft of SW swell, backing off through the day and coming in at 1-1.5ft Sunday. A slight kick back to 2ft should have been seen through the day yesterday, fading back into this morning.

This week and weekend (May 15 – 21)

Tomorrow is looking fun across the South Arm with the arrival of a new SW groundswell, generated over the weekend. Good 2ft waves are due across Clifton through the morning, if not for the odd bigger one and with light NW offshore winds, tending variable before late sea breezes kick in.

Wednesday then looks tiny to 1ft+ with all day offshores.

Later in the week we should see some new S/SW groundswell building across the South Arm, produced by a flurry of strong and favourably aligned polar fronts south-west and south of us over the coming days.

An initial strong pre-frontal W/NW fetch will then be followed by a slightly stronger gale-force W/NW tending SW fetch Wednesday, producing a good sized southerly swell.

The swell is due to build through Thursday, small early and reaching 2-3ft by dark, easing from a similar size Friday morning.

Onshore S/SE winds will be in as the swell builds Thursday afternoon, with N/NW tending NE winds Friday.

Longer term there's no significant swells or fronts due from the west or south-west as back to back mid-latitude lows moving across the south of the country block our swell windows.

A vigorous polar frontal progression developing south of New Zealand later this week may see a broad and significant fetch of gale to severe-gale S/SE winds aimed through our swell window, generating a S/SE groundswell for Sunday/Monday, but we'll have a closer look at this Wednesday.