Southern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday October 12th)

Best Days: Saturday morning, Sunday, Tuesday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Inconsistent SW groundswell Sat with N/NW winds ahead of a gusty S/SW change early PM
• Mid-period SW swell Sun with N/NW-N winds
• Better S/SW swell Mon with S winds
• Easing surf Tue with N/NE winds

Recap

A great increase in size yesterday with 3ft sets across Clifton with clean conditions in the morning, choppy through the afternoon. This morning the surf was mostly back to 2ft with the odd bigger one in the mix.

Chunky sets yesterday AM

This week and next (Oct 13 - 21)

The current swell is on the decline and come tomorrow there won't be much left at all across Clifton, just 1ft and best for beginners.

The rest of the outlook remains slow, but a slight pulse of SW groundswell is due Saturday, generated by a brief but significant fetch of storm-force winds on the polar shelf, south-southwest of Western Australia last night.

This should provide small, inconsistent 1-2ft waves on Saturday, better than flatness. Conditions look favourable as well with a W/NW-NW offshore ahead of an early afternoon S/SW change.

Moving into Sunday and Monday next week, and a small, stalling polar low to our south-west on Friday should generate a fetch of W/SW tending W gale to severe-gale winds through our south-western swell window, producing a fun SW swell for Sunday, stronger Monday.

Sunday's swell looks to be around 2ft (with offshore winds), stronger and to 2-3ft into Monday but a front linked to the low may bring onshore winds early next week, out of the S'th.

Longer term there's further small pulses of swell energy due next week, but not to the size of Monday's. We'll have another look at this Friday.