Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday May 6th)

Best Days: Today, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Tiny S/SE swell tomorrow with onshore winds, possibly variable at dawn
• Mid-period SW swell Sun with strong SW winds, easing later
• Easing SW swell Mon with N/NW winds
• Moderate sized SW groundswell Wed with N/NW tending E/NE winds

Recap

A window of clean conditions yesterday morning with fun 2ft sets, onshore into the afternoon as a broad, multi-centred low started to deep across us.

Heavy rainfalls and strong onshore winds whipped up a localised SE windswell which has now cleaned up and is easing as the low shifts west. Hit the beach for a wave.

This weekend and next week (May 7 - 13)

We’ve gone through one cycle of the low with it shifting west this afternoon but we’ll see it pushing back to the east tomorrow, bringing onshore winds and with no real decent swell left in the tank from today.

There’s a chance for early variable winds but the swell will be as stated, tiny.

Into Sunday we’ve got our fun pulse of mid-period SW swell, generated by a broad, healthy fetch of strong to gale-force W/NW winds pushing down and along the Polar Shelf.

Good 2ft+ sets are due across Clifton but the backside of the low will be still affecting us with strong SW winds, abating later.

Monday still looks clean with N/NW tending variable winds and fun, easing 1-2ft sets across Clifton.

Longer term we were looking at a quieter period next week, but a mid-latitude frontal progression dipping south-east through our swell window and towards the polar shelf will strengthen significantly, late in our swell window.

We’re looking at a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/NW winds being generated, though the European model ECMWF has a weaker low forming. Either way we’re looking at a good kick in size on Wednesday, pushing to the 3ft range and with great winds. More on this Monday though. Have a great weekend!