South Arm Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 10th May)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small clean waves Thurs
• Small pulse of surf Sat, easing Sun, very inconsistent
• Better outlook from Tues onwards

Recap
 
Solid but onshore surf Tuesday improved a little today as winds eased back and wave heights slowly abated. 

This week (May 11 - 12)

Easing swells will continue through the rest of the week, with Thursday the pick of the forecast period. However there won't be a lot of size on offer.

Conditions should be clean with offshore winds but we're looking at slow 2ft+ sets early, easing to 1-2ft by lunch and possibly smaller waves into the afternoon.

Freshening westerlies associated with a passing front on Friday won't be acocmpanied by any new swell so there won't be anything to get excited about.

This weekend (May 13 - 14)

The current block within our swell window - responsible for the easing trend - will cease around Thursday as a powerful cut-off low approaches from the west. This system looks really good on paper with a broad fetch of gales around the low as it moves up through the Bight, albeit initially aimed outside of our swell window.

Unfortunately, by Friday morning this fetch will be quickly transitioning out of our swell window and so we’re looking at only a small time of swell generation favourable for the South Arm surfers (see below). 

Additionally, the swell will have a lot of west in its direction which'll shave off a significant percentage of size inside Storm Bay. West facing coasts will fare the best over the weekend, though Saturday will be accompanied by W'ly winds so conditions won't be great at these spots (light variable winds are expected Sunday, that'll be your best time to pounce here).

As for size across the broader South Arm, following an early small start on Saturday, we should see an increase into the 2ft range by mid-late afternoon, before easing from 1-2ft Sunday morning. Exposed coasts will see more size.

Next week (May 15 onwards)

Lots of activity for the long term with a steady conveyor belt of polar lows and fronts expected to generate a whole stack of groundswell for the following week or two. This will all be positioned within a much better art of our swell window so surf prospects are a lot better than what's expected over the coming days.

Monday will probably be undersized (being between swell events) but from Tuesday onwards we should start to pick up plenty of waves for the South Arm. Let’s take a closer pass on Friday.