South Arm Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 29th July)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small surf Sat, easing and becoming tiny by Sun
• Very windy all of next week with no significant swells
• No signs as yet of any major break in this unfavourable pattern

Recap

It’s been tiny to flat all week with a small bump in swell today.

This weekend (July 30 - 31)

It’s not shaping up to be a good weekend of waves. 

Today’s small increase us expected to trend down through Saturday and become almost flat by Sunday as winds swing from a moderate to fresh W’ly (early Sat) to the NW (Sat PM) then N’ly (on Sun). 

As such your only option for a wave will be early Saturday, and even then it’s looking to be a fair grovel at the swell magnets. Morning temps in the low single digits won’t make it much easier either. 

Next week (Aug 1 onwards)

The poor outlook continues next week for South Arm surfers. 

In essence, the storm track is aimed pretty much everywhere except for the Vicco and Southern Tasmanian swell windows. 

A small polar low directly below the state is pushing up towards us, however the strongest winds are on its northern flank, aligned outside of our swell window.

Elsewhere, we’ve got an anchored, amplifying Long Wave Trough driving cold front after cold front into the West Oz coastline, and these systems are then pushing through the upper Bight - replicating the onshore pattern through South Oz - but this is riding too north in latitude to favour our region (see below).  

So, we’ll see all of the accompanying pre-frontal wind next week - strong out of the west and north at times - but without any of the typical winter surf. 

There are no sneaky systems sitting off in our south-east swell window either. It’s all looking pretty dire. 

What we need is the broadscale storm track to break down and/or track to the east, and there is still no signs as to when this may occur. 

So, hang in there: I can’t say there’s light at the end of the tunnel (because there isn’t any) but every day forward is a day closer to a break in the synoptic pattern and a resumption to a positive surf outlook. 

See you Monday!