Indian Ocean Basin analysis by Craig Brokensha (issued Thursday 19th October)

This week through next week (Oct 20 - 27)

The surf is easing and bottoming out across the region, with the next pulse of energy due to arrive through the weekend, building through Saturday and peaking Sunday.

It'll be inconsistent and not overly sizey, generated by a weak frontal system that fired up to the west-southwest of Western Australia earlier this week.

The swell has built nicely through today across Margaret River with a couple of 6ft sets on the magnets and this bodes well for smaller but fun waves at the peak across eastern Indonesia Sunday.

The trend will be down from Monday, with the rest of the week being small with inconsistent, background levels of swell.

As touched on in Tuesday's update, a better groundswell is on the cards for Monday the 30th, though the frontal progression linked to it looks quite weak and not overly signficant.

At best it looks to be a moderate to large sized groundswell but might come more in the moderate size range. We'll have a closer look at this on Tuesday.

The Maldives are currently looking at small, fading levels of SE trade-swell thanks to the trades breaking down through the Indian Ocean, though they are expected to start to strengthen during the middle of next week.

This should see the size building back late in the week and more so next weekend to 3-4ft across the magnets.

Small levels of background S'ly swell should keep the southern atolls topped up with 2ft+ sets through the period.

Eastern Indonesia:

Small to tiny surf tomorrow and Saturday morning.

Small – moderate sized, mid-period S/SW swell building later Saturday, peaking Sunday morning to 4-5ft across exposed breaks, easing.

Moderate sized + S/SW groundswell for Monday 30th to 4-6ft across exposed breaks

Weak (moderate to fresh) E/SE-SE trades tomorrow. Weaker trades into the weekend, through all of next week. Light and variable each morning.

Uluwatu 16-day Forecast Graph/WAMs

Western Indonesia/Mentawais/South Sumatra:

Small pulse of mid-period S/SW swell building Saturday, peaking Sunday to 4ft across exposed breaks, easing into next week.

Moderate sized S/SW groundswell for Monday 30th to 4-5ft+ across exposed breaks.

Slowly weakening trades across southern locations late week and into the weekend but persisting. Variable winds to the north. Winds strengthening later next week from the S/SE-SE.

Mentawai 16-day Forecast Graph/WAMs

Maldives:

Slowly easing SE trade-swell through tomorrow and the weekend, smaller and reaching 2ft by early next week.

Small background levels of S'ly to 2ft+ across the southern atolls.

Building SE trade-swell late next week, reaching 3-4ft next weekend (28/29th).

Mostly variable winds, E/SE-SE to the south. Increasing SE winds to the south early next week, S/SE to the north.