South Arm Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 14th May)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Very windy conditions holding through until next weekend
• Very small surf this weekend
• Large surf due Monday, easing rapidly Tues
• Small surf persisting from Wed thru' Sun

Recap

Tiny surf conditions for the last few days. Winds were fresh to strong N’ly thru’ W’ly on Thursday, swinging SW for a brief period today.

This weekend (May 15 - 16)

No change to the weekend outlook. 

The storm track is riding a little too high to favour the South Arm, so - along with restrengthening W’ly gales later Saturday and into Sunday - I’m not really expecting a lot of size in Storm Bay. 

Winds will however be much lighter early Saturday so beginners may find small shorebreaks along the South Arm early morning. 

Next week (May 17 onwards)

A polar low pushing along the ice shelf under South Australia on Saturday is expected to line up nicely within our S/SW swell window (see below), and will generate a solid swell for Monday.

However, the associated front will cross the coast at the same time so we’ll have accompanying W/SW winds in the 30kt range. Exposed South Arm beaches should push somewhere near 4-6ft and we’ll see small peelers along the regional points. 

The rest of the week is expected to see gale forecast winds alternating between the NW and W/SW, and a drop in wave heights as the storm track becomes a little more zonal, sitting at about Tasmanian latitudes - not ideal for surf prospects but certainly enough to maintain surfable action most days. As such we’ll see easing surf from Tuesday (early 3ft+ sets), holding somewhere in the 2-3ft range through until next weekend or thereabouts. 

At this stage Thursday and Saturday look like they’ll have the most size, though Tuesday, Friday and Saturday will probably see the best conditions for the open beaches (if you can handle a lot of spray up the face). 

More details on Monday!