Pumping, pre-contest content has started to hit the socials with the CT scoring a great run of swell into the lead up to the first day of the Corona Open J-Bay waiting period, that being this Thursday the 13th.

Luckily we're looking at a favourable outlook into the middle to end of the waiting period after a dicey first couple of days.

Following the recent run of clean, pumping surf, a strong high pressure system is moving slowly across South Africa, bringing a couple of days of subdued frontal activity and less favourable local winds out of the north.

A fun sized, mid-period S/SW swell is due on the first day of the waiting period, but with the 'devilish' northerly morning winds, and strong afternoon easterly sea breezes, it looks to be a lay day.

Friday and Saturday will follow suit with fading surf and persistent, poor northerly winds.

The high will be moved on to the east by a flurry of strengthening frontal activity through the weekend though, with back to back lows due to generate mixed pulses of mid-period swell varying in directions from the west to south.

With Jeffrey's being tucked in hard behind Cape St Francis to the south, any swell from the west is blocked, with southerly energy coming in much better size, consistency and shape wise.

With this in mind, an initial strong frontal system moving through Sunday will generate a great fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW tending SW winds right under South Africa.

This will generate an improving SW tending S/SW mid-period swell that's expected to build Sunday afternoon with favourable W/SW winds, peaking overnight and easing Monday morning from 5-6ft on the sets.

Unfortunately the next approaching front will bring average N/NW winds as the swells eases Monday morning, improving into the afternoon as winds shift W/SW-SW. Tuesday looks smaller with early NW winds due to shift W/SW again through the morning as a front passes through.

With this outlook we may see half days run both Sunday and Monday afternoons.

Into Wednesday, a possible large, reinforcing pulse of S groundswell is likely off the backside of the frontal system moving through Sunday, with a great fetch of polar S/SW gales forecast to be projected northwards early next week.

A good 5-6ft of swell is again due and with strong W/NW tending W/SW winds, providing improving conditions through the day.

There will also likely be some smaller westerly swell in the mix Wednesday, generated by a strong but unfavourably positioned low forming to the west of the country Sunday evening. At this stage we'll disregard this due to its westerly nature as well as the European model having it quite a bit weaker than the American version.

The end of the period looks to provide plenty more S'ly swell but winds may start to become less favourable again as a high starts edging in from the west. The models are still quite divergent from the middle of next week so we'll continue to watch developments play out.

All in all it's not an epic outlook but there should be moments of great surf in between more ordinary days.