Oakley Surfing Life Big Swell Update

AUGUST 11 - 24, 2008

At the start of this period, the last front in a very cold-air series is passing Tasmania’s southern fringes. This front built well within Australia’s longitude span and thus will push most of its swell past the continent’s window, slamming NZ’s west coast and eventually Fiji.

There's an outside chance of a bomb day at Shipsterns on Tues/Wed (August 12 & 13). It might be windy on Weds but the swell might just beat the wind.

We’re about to plunge into a classic late winter “doldrums” – a large high pressure system is forecast to settle over the Great Australian Bight and perform a blocking action on Southern Ocean storms. Small and very pretty waves will be seen through the period along sw WA and open western Vicco coasts, but cracking 10-foot-plus action? Forget it.

There is hope on the long-range charts, which have the high finally breaking down around August 22, and an explosive opportunistic low blowing up toward western Victoria. Depending on how this low behaves, we may see some good swell/wing combos for some secret South Oz reefs and even for Shipstern Bluff in Tassie. Hold on for emergency updates.