Southern Tasmanian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday July 12th)

Best Days: Tomorrow morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate sized W/SW groundswell tomorrow with W/NW tending SW winds into the PM, fresher S/SW later
• Easing swell Sun with strengthening S-S/SE tending S winds
• Building windswell Sun with a stronger swell on dark but more so Mon with strong S/SE winds
• Junky SE windswell Tue and Wed with strong SE winds Tue, S/SE Wed
• N winds Fri with tiny W swell

Recap

Tiny surf the last two days with great conditions for beginners.

This weekend and next week (Jul 13 - 19)

There’s no change to the strong W/SW groundswell due tomorrow, with a great Southern Ocean frontal progression generating it earlier this week. Inconsistent strong strong 3ft sets are due across Clifton, easing into Sunday from 2ft+.

The main issue are the local winds, with things going pear shaped from Sunday.

Tomorrow should see a morning W/NW breeze and clean conditions, shifting SW into the afternoon and then more onshore later. Make the most of these conditions as a low forming east of us on Sunday will then retrograde back to the west, projecting its southern flank up into us.

This will bring strong S-S/SE tending S-S/SW winds on Sunday along with a mix of building windswell and later arriving S/SE swell.

The timing of the stronger S/SE swell now looks later and more so Monday morning with the size also downgraded, likely to 4-5ft across Clifton along with strong S-S/SE winds. This is thanks to the low sitting a little more east, bringing the poor conditions and limiting surfing options.

It looks like we’ll continue to see SE winds into Tuesday, shifting S/SE on Wednesday thanks to a secondary low swinging in from the east. The surf will remain poor and junky with low period energy to 3ft or so.

It’s not until Friday that winds swing back offshore though with what looks to be no swell.

Longer term all the activity looks to be in our western swell window, not ideal at all so maybe try the East Coast notes.