Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 16th August)

Best Days: Protected spots Friday, Saturday morning, Sunday onwards small clean waves

Recap

Fading surf from 1-1.5ft yesterday, back to a tiny 1ft today.

This week and weekend (Aug 17 - 20)

The surf will remain tiny into tomorrow and around 1ft as a strong front passes across us, generating a tiny W/SW swell.

Of greater importance is the S/SW swell due into Friday and Saturday, with a slight upgrade in the size due across the region.

This afternoon a polar fetch of gale to severe-gale S/SW winds are forming. This fetch is initially too far west of our swell window, but into this evening the fetch will move slowly east while projecting north.

With this we'll see a good moderate sized S/SW groundswell generated by this system, building through Friday and peaking later in the day.

Clifton should increase to a solid 4ft if not 5ft on the sets through Friday afternoon, but with S/SW winds. Protected spots will offer the best waves.

The swell should start to ease through Saturday, down from 3ft+ in the morning along with W/NW tending W/SW winds.

From Sunday we'll see small and fun levels of SW groundswell impacting Clifton, generated by polar fronts firing up along the shelf.

An initial pulse Sunday only looks to be 1-2ft, but a touch more power and size is on the cards for Tuesday.

Longer term bigger W/SW swells are on the cards for mid-late week, but more on this Friday.