Southern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday February 23rd)

Best Days: Saturday morning for the keen, selected spots Tuesday and Wednesday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small, mid-period W/SW swell building Fri PM with fresh S/SW winds, easing Sat with light ENE winds, freshening through the day
• Inconsistent W/SW swell for Tue with fresh E/NE tending strong NE winds, holding Wed with strong NE winds, easing Thu

Recap

Monday's swell eased back from a clean, fun 2-3ft yesterday while today's reinforcing swell to 2ft looks to be a touch smaller but clean again.

This week and next (Feb 24 - Mar 4)

The surf will become tiny into tomorrow and conditions will deteriorate from dawn as a trough brings a light to moderate S/SE change, freshening through the morning.

Into Friday and more so Saturday, some small new mid-period W/SW swell is due, generated by back to back mid-latitude fronts pushing in from the west today and tomorrow. This should see surf building to 1-2ft Friday afternoon and easing from a similar size Saturday morning.

Winds will unfortunately remain fresh out of the S/SW on Friday as the trough moving through tomorrow lingers to our east, while Saturday should see a light E/NE breeze in the morning, freshening through the day.

Less favourable E/NE tending SE winds are due into Sunday as the trough drifts south, and the swell will be tiny in any case, bottoming out Monday ahead of some inconsistent new W/SW swell from Tuesday.

The source of this swell will be an elongated though weakening polar frontal progression moving in and under the country Friday through the weekend.

Fetches of strong to near gale-force W-W/NW winds will generate some inconsistent but fun 2ft surf from Tuesday, holding Wednesday and then easing Thursday.

The trough will unfortunately continue to influence our winds early next week with a S'ly tending SE breeze Monday and strong E/NE tending NE winds on Tuesday, favouring selected locations. Wednesday will then see strong NE winds persisting.

Longer term there's a bit more action into the following week as the Southern Ocean becomes more active. More on this in the coming updates.