South Arm Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 10th May)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Slowly improving options on Tuesday
• Small, easing tho' clean surf Wed, tiny by Thurs
• Small and windy surf Fri/Sat/Sun
• Solid new swell for Monday
• Plenty of strong surf for the rest of next week

Recap

Tiny leftover surf on Saturday built a little through Sunday though NW winds reached strong to gale force (Maatsuyker Island gusting 55kts mid afternoon). The swell has backed off this morning, leaving us with small leftovers and early moderate offshore winds, ahead of an onshore change that reached the South Coast around 7:30am, Cape Bruny at 9:15am, Dennes Point at 10:30am and the airport at 11:08am. We’ve seen building surf into the afternoon though with associated poor conditions.

This week (May 11 - 14)

*Today’s Forecaster Notes will be brief as Craig is away*

Today’s front is clearing quickly to the east, so apart from an outside chance for a brief window of early lingering southerlies, we should see a rapid improvement in surface conditions on Tuesday as winds become light and variable through the day. 

Lumpy surf should peak around 3ft at open South Arm beaches, so there’ll be fun workable options if you’re keen. Expect better conditions further inside Storm Bay where we’re more likely to see less wind strength overnight.

Freshening northerly winds are then expected Wednesday and Thursday as the swell rapidly loses size. You’ll have to make the most of early Wednesday for the best options, with clean 1-2ft+ surf before it fades through the afternoon and drops below 1ft for Thursday.

Late Thursday, we’ll see a vigorous front cross the coast, that will herald the start of at least a week - or more - of gusty westerlies, as an extended passage of fronts push across the state.

Initially, most of these systems will be riding a little further north in latitude through the Southern Ocean than is ideal for the South Arm, so I’m only expecting small, windy surf on Friday.

This weekend (May 15 - 16)

As mentioned above, the storm track won’t initially be well aligned for the South Arm, so I'm not expecting any appreciable size this weekend. As such, we’re probably looking at a couple of days of small, blustery surf. Keep your expectations low right now.

Next week (May 17 onwards)

The final front/low in the initial Southern Ocean sequence is expected to track below WA on Friday (see below), and as it’ll hug the ice shelf, will be much better positioned within the South Arm’s swell window.

The associated front will clip the coast overnight Saturday, but most of the groundswell generated earlier will be trailing some 24 hours behind, so I’m not expecting size to build properly until Sunday night, with Monday on target for a solid round of waves up into the 3-5ft mark. Unfortunately, conditions will be cold and wind affected with strong post-frontal SW winds, and I don’t think there’ll be quite enough size for anything amazing on the regional points (they’ll have small options though). 

More lows travelling behind are expected to line up in a similar part of the swell window over the weekend and beyond, so they should be well positioned to generate plenty of strong surf throughout the remainder of next week - however current indications are that the storm track will remain close to Tasmania so it’ll be windy until Thursday or maybe even Friday.

But.. there’ll be waves!

More on this in Wednesday’s update.