Southern Tasmania Surf Forecast (issued Mon 14th Apr)

Southern Tasmania Forecast (issued Monday 14th April)

Best Days: No good days

Recap

The weekend was poor with onshore winds and an easing windswell Saturday, while Sunday was cleaner and tiny but only for beginners.

Today the surf was even smaller but a late increase in size should have been seen, although with onshore winds.

This week (Apr 14 - 18)

Today's late pulse of swell should peak tomorrow and offer fun 2ft waves across Clifton. The source of this swell was a mid-latitude front tracking east-southeast from under WA towards the polar shelf over the weekend, which isn't ideal for us.

Winds are looking a little dicey tomorrow with a light S'ly possibly lingering in the wake of a shallow change this afternoon. But keep an eye on local wind observations for an early offshore.

The swell should then ease into the afternoon, with a small reinforcing SW groundswell expected to keep 1-2ft sets hitting Clifton into Wednesday and Thursday morning with more favourable N'ly winds.

Into Friday the swell should bottom out, with only a possible late increase in W/SW windswell on the cards as a strong cold front crosses the state.

This weekend onwards (Apr 17 onwards)

The weekend is looking much more interesting as a long-range and acute but very powerful W/SW groundswell impacts the state.

This swell has already begun its life west of Heard Island with a vigorous polar front firing up and generating a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds on the periphery of our swell window. This front will push slowly up towards the Bight over the coming days and just a tad too north and out of our swell window into Thursday before impacting SA and Vicco on Friday.

This swell will be very West in nature and hence there'll be a lot if size discrepency between breaks, but Clifton should see 3-4ft sets at North, although very inconsistent. Winds are looking good for this swell though, swinging from a morning W/NW'ly around to the NW during the day, creating a full day of clean waves.

Come Sunday the swell will drop abruptly under W/NW winds, but a late kick in new W/SW swell may be seen, generated by a much smaller frontal system racing into us during the day. This swell should peak Monday in the 3ft range, but we'll review this on Wednesday.