South Arm Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday July 19th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Tiny weekend
• Small, low confidence swell building Mon, easing Tues but likely not much size
• Tiny conditions for the rest of next week
• Potential for better surf next weekend onwards

Recap

Gusty onshore winds eased through Thursday as strong southerly swells reached a peak in the 3-5ft range at open beaches. Smaller surf today has eased from a few 2-3ft sets at dawn to near-flat condition later this afternoon, clean with offshore winds. 

Small fun peaks across the open beaches Friday AM

This weekend (Jul 20 - 21)

Nothing great is expected for the weekend, as the storm track has been positioned outside of our swell window for the last few days. The only change to the outlook is that variable winds are now likely on Saturday before freshening NW winds return on Sunday. Tiny surf will prevail at most South Arm beaches. 

Next week (Jul 22 onwards)

I’m still skeptical that we’ll see much value next week. The storm track has simply been riding too far north and too far to the west to properly benefit the South Arm’s swell window. 

Monday and Tuesday have the most potential as we’ll be at the top of the swell cycle from this very large but poorly aligned Southern Ocean storm. Conditions should be clean with mainly NW winds both days and surf size may lift into the 2ft+ range but I’d be surprised if we saw much more than that.

Otherwise, gusty conditions will prevail for the rest of the week with generally small background surf in the 1ft range. 

Next week onwards still has some potential for more size as a new low pressure system develops closer to the Tasmanian region, but that is still quite some time away.

See you Monday!