Southern Tasmanian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday December 30th)

Best Days: Tomorrow morning, Wednesday morning, Friday morning, Saturday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small to tiny tomorrow with W/SW tending variable winds ahead of sea breezes
• Small W/SW swell Wed with a stronger pulse for later and more so Thu, easing slowly Fri
• N/NW winds ahead of sea breezes Wed
• Gusty W/SW tending SW winds Thu
• N/NW tending S/SE winds Fri
• Small reinforcing SW swell Sat, easing with N/NW winds and S sea breezes
• Moderate sized SW groundswell building Sun with strengthening S winds

Recap

The surf has hovered in the 1-2ft range since the weekend thanks to ebbs and pulses of W/SW swell.

This week and weekend (Dec 31 - Jan 5)

We’ve got an active week of westerly swell inbound thanks to a good progression of storms moving in from the Heard Island region. An initial healthy fetch of sub-gale-force W’ly winds is being tailed by a stronger low and fetch of gale to severe-gales.

This is generating small levels of W’ly swell with the initial energy on Wednesday to 1-2ft with stronger sets to 2ft to occasionally 3ft or so on Thursday (possibly undersized early), easing slowly Friday from a similar size.

A small trailing low should generate a reinforcing pulse of SW energy for Saturday morning that will keep waves around 2ft before easing through the afternoon.

Local winds over the coming days look generally OK though early tomorrow a W/SW breeze will tend variable creating improving conditions ahead of sea breezes.

Wednesday will be clean with morning offshore winds, similar Friday, with dicey W/SW winds Thursday. Expect sea breezes every afternoon.

Saturday morning looks good again ahead of S’ly sea breezes, strengthening from the S’th through the day Sunday.

This will spoil a new SW groundswell due into Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, with a strong low due to form while tracking south-east under the country late week.

This low could kick up 3-4ft of swell but we’ll review this Wednesday.