Southern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday December 20)

Best Days: Thursday morning beginners, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Tiny, fading swell tomorrow with light W/NW winds ahead of S/SE sea breezes
• Building mid-period SW swell Fri PM with E/SE-SE tending fresh S/SE winds
• Peak in SW swell Sat with W/NW winds ahead of S/SE sea breezes
• Moderate sized W/SW swell building Mon, peaking into the PM with strengthening N/NE tending E/NE winds
• Easing swell Tue with NE winds
• Reinforcing SW swell Wed with NE winds

Recap

Onshore winds and a building swell yesterday that is easing into today, mixed in with some local windswell. Winds were light early but now stronger, adding lots of chop.

This week and weekend (Dec 21 - 24)

Looking at tomorrow morning and our window of variable winds and cleaner conditions are due but the swell will be tiny and fading from 1-1.5ft. Afternoon S/SE sea breezes will kill off things from late morning.

Moving into Friday we should see some building mid-period SW swell, generated by weak but healthy polar frontal activity along the polar shelf.

The morning looks tiny but building sets to 2ft are due later, peaking Saturday to a similar size, then easing Sunday.

Winds look unfavourable on Friday unfortunately and moderate out of the E/SE-SE, freshening from the S/SE during the day, with Saturday looking much better under a light W/NW offshore.

Moving into next week and our stronger W/SW swell for Monday is on track, with a good polar low due to generate a fetch of strong to near-gale-force W/SW winds while moving east from the Heard Island region.

It'll provide some fun 2ft to occasionally 3ft waves across Clifton on Monday afternoon when it peaks and winds now look more favourable with a trough in the area clearing east, allowing fresh N/NE tending stronger E/NE winds in on the coast.

A secondary front moving in behind the low on Sunday looks to generate additional fetches of strong W/NW winds, and this should produce some reinforcing mid-period energy for Wednesday.

This looks to keep 2ft+ waves hitting Clifton along with persistent, strong NE winds.

This will provide plenty of options for the savvy.