Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 18th September)

Best Days: Dawn Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning

Recap

Large onshore surf into Saturday, best for protected spots, smaller and cleaner to 3ft across Clifton yesterday morning.

Today there wasn't much left at all with tiny waves out on the coast.

This week and weekend (Sep 19 – 24)

Our strong long-period W/SW groundswell for tomorrow morning is on track, with satellite observations picking up an excellent fetch of slow moving severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds over the weekend.

Even into last night and early this morning the polar low was generating similar strength winds. The low is now weakening while approaching from the south-west and we'll see a front from this system push across us at dawn tomorrow.

This will bring a strong W/SW change and mix of W/SW windswell to the coast.

If the change is slightly delayed there may be an hour or two of clean conditions and we can expect sets to 3ft across Clifton, with the windswell reaching a similar size into the afternoon.

Come Wednesday we'll see some reinforcing SW groundswell from the fetch currently moving towards us keeping sets up around 3ft+, easing through the day with excellent offshore N/NW tending variable winds.

Come Thursday there isn't expected to be much swell left with tiny 1ft+ leftovers with N'ly winds.

Late week a slow moving mid-latitude low dipping east-southeast into our swell window Wednesday should produce some small W/SW swell for Friday, building to a small 2ft on the sets into the afternoon and easing from 1-2ft Saturday.

W/NW winds are due most of Friday, maybe tending a touch more onshore later, with N'ly tending variable winds Saturday.

Longer term there's nothing too major on the cards besides some poor windswell early next week as a weakening mid-latitude low moves over us, combined with a polar front, but more on this Wednesday.