South Arm Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 23rd October)

Best Days: Thurs: small and clean though very inconsistent beachies. Sun/Mon: decent S'ly swell, though windy.

Recap: Easing swells and lighter winds have provided small clean beachies across the South Arm over the last few days. 

This week (Oct 22 - 25)

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Long period swell energy is just sorting to show on the Cape Sorell buoy (swell periods are 18-19 seconds), and we’ll see this event reach a regional plateau through Thursday, even holding into Friday.

Unfortunately for the South Arm, the swell direction is W/SW and this will heavily attenuate surf size in Storm Bay, which is a shame as Thursday is looking clean, if a little blustery with fresh N/NE winds.

Strengthening pre-frontal N/NW winds on Friday morning will swing W/NW during the day but surf options will remain very limited. Slow, very inconsistent 1-2ft sets are probably as good as it’ll get through this time frame. 

The only other potential swell source is a small polar low associated with Tuesday night’s that may generate some small S/SW energy on Thursday but I don’t think it’ll be very large.

As such, keep your expectations low for the next few days. 

This weekend (Oct 26 - 27)

A strong passage of fronts and lows across Tasmania will maintain westerly quadrant gales from Friday through Monday or even Tuesday.

However, all of the initial developments on Friday will be outside of our swell window, so Saturday will see tiny, blustery conditions across the South Arm.

Fortunately, Sunday looks much better. A deepening polar low well south of the state overnight Friday and into Saturday (see below) is expected to display a long, broad fetch of gale force S’ly winds and we’re looking at building S’ly swells into Sunday. 

The models are majorly undercalling this swell event, and I think we’ll see building size all day towards a late peak, possibly holding into early Monday before easing rapidly.

At its peak late Sunday most breaks with good southerly exposure should reach somewhere in the 4-5ft, maybe 4-6ft range, though sheltered spots will be a lot smaller. Winds will remain at strength from the W/SW (possibly early W/NW) so you’ll have to find a compromise between size and quality. But there’ll be good waves on offer.. this is shaping up to be a good quality south swell.

Next week (Oct 28 onwards)

Sunday’s strong S’ly swell will slowly ease through Monday, with plenty of waves to kick off the working week as winds veer NW again as another small front approaches for the west. There’ll be some good options in the morning before the swell loses too much size. 

We have some impressive long period energy on the cards for the first half of next week, but once again, the distant source and W/SW direction will cap surf size across the South Arm to just a couple of feet of inconsistent surf tops. 

Long term projections indicate an extended period of small surf form Tuesday onwards thanks to a regional blocking pattern upstream, that will focus the storm track away from our swell window.

As such, make the most of Sunday/Monday as early indications are that it’ll be be the main swell event for the next weekend and a half. The next sequence of frontal systems likely to line up in our swell window are due around next weekend. 

See you Friday!