Tahiti and surrounds forecast (Tue 25th Feb)

Tahiti and surrounds forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Tuesday 25th February)

Best days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning

This week and weekend (Feb 25 – Mar 2)

A fun pulse of acute S'ly groundswell is due to fill in tomorrow and peak during the afternoon to 3-4ft at exposed spots generated by a small polar low firing up late in our swell window over the weekend.

Of much greater importance is a long-range S/SW groundswell due to fill in Friday and peak Saturday across the region.

The source of this swell stems from a flurry of polar frontal activity between Tasmania and New Zealand which initially wasn't within our swell window and aimed towards Fiji. Over the last few days though, the activity moved under and then just east of New Zealand, with a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds being generated within our swell window (pictured right).

This has set in motion a strong S/SW groundswell that should build solidly Friday afternoon and peak in the 5-6ft range across most spots, with bigger bombs possible at swell magnets such as Teahupoo Saturday morning.

Winds at this stage look to be variable from the N'th favouring most spots open to the swell, so try and work around getting some free time Friday and Saturday to surf. The swell should drop steadily into Sunday with light E/NE trades.

Next week onwards (Mar 3 onwards)

Next week will be slow for the most part with small levels of S/SE groundswell from a funky trough developing south of us over the weekend.

Longer term though there's a couple of swell sources on the cards, one from a possible tropical cyclone drifting south-east down from Fiji, and then another possible bigger S/SW groundswell late next week, but we'll review this Thursday.