Java, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Tuesday 12th April)

Best Days: Wednesday morning, Saturday afternoon onwards

This week and weekend (Apr 13 - 17)

An inconsistent pulse of S/SW groundswell through yesterday afternoon should be peaking today to a very infrequent 3-5ft across swell magnets, small to tiny on the Bukit reefs.

This swell is expected to ease back through tomorrow and further into Wednesday and Thursday leaving the Bukit to go effectively flat, with swell magnets picking up 2ft to maybe sometimes 3ft bombs.

Conditions will be favourable and clean each morning with light offshore winds before weak E/SE trades kick in.

As talked about the last couple of updates, our long-range and very inconsistent SW groundswell due for the coming weekend is still on track, generated by a vigorous and slow moving polar frontal system firing up south-east of South Africa late last week and over the weekend.

Due to the large distance between the source of the swell and our coasts there'll be very long waits between sets, but the swell should build slowly Saturday afternoon ahead of a peak Sunday morning to 5-6ft across exposed breaks (smaller on the Bukit reefs).

Fresher E/SE trades will kick in from Friday and persist most of next week, more variable each morning.

Into next week, the swell should drop temporarily Monday, but later in the day and more so Tuesday a new fun S/SW groundswell is due to fill in.

This is currently being generated by not an overly strong but pro-longed polar low that's south-west of Heard Island and will track east along the polar shelf over the coming days.

Exposed breaks should build back to the 4-5ft range Tuesday morning, before then backing off into Wednesday again.

Longer term another similar sized S/SW groundswell is on the cards for the following weekend, followed by possibly a larger swell Sunday, but we'll have a closer look at this Thursday.

16 day Bali Forecast Graph
16 day East Java Forecast Graph
16 day Sumbawa Forecast Graph