South Australian Forecast (issued Monday 14th July)

Best Days: Tuesday through Thursday down South, later Wednesday and Thursday for keen surfers on the Mid, Friday on the Mid, down South over the weekend

Recap

Saturday was poor on the South Coast with fresh onshores and a building swell, but the Mid offered tiny, clean 1-1.5ft waves for a novelty surf across the beaches and reefs.

Sunday saw great waves down South with a clean and solid S/SW groundswell to 3-5ft across Middleton with even bigger waves out at Waits. Winds remained favourable all day as the swell also held well into the afternoon.

Today the swell was easing but conditions are much more lined up with offshore N/NE winds and easing 3-4ft waves at Middleton and bigger sets at Waits. The Mid Coast is tiny and ideal for beginners.

This week (Jul 15 – Jul 18)

The South Coast will be the go again tomorrow as a new SW groundswell fills in under strengthening N/NW winds. This should see Middleton building back to 3ft through the afternoon after bottoming out early in the morning with 4ft sets out at Waits. It may be worth surfing through the morning though as conditions may become tricky into the afternoon. The Mid won't see any major size with a NW windswell building to 1-1.5ft into the afternoon.

As touched on the last few updates, a series of strong W/SW groundswells are due through Wednesday and Thursday all due to the Long Wave Trough.

The LWT is currently over WA and will move through the Bight over the coming days, with a vigorous mid-latitude frontal progression following close behind it.

A strong and inconsistent W/SW groundswell has already been generated by frontal activity that's been focussed up towards WA and this should arrive through Wednesday afternoon. As this swell arrives though, a vigorous front pushing through the Bight will generate an additional W/SW windswell followed by groundswell for Thursday.

Size wise we should see the Mid Coast building to 2-3ft+ later in the day Wednesday while the South Coast should reach 3-5ft at Middleton and 4-6ft at Waits. Thursday should see solid 3-4ft waves across the Mid Coast while the South Coast will see the most size in the 5ft range at Middleton and 6ft+ out at Waits.

Winds will be good down South Wednesday morning with a fresh NW tending W/NW breeze, while there'll only be a small window Thursday morning with W/NW tending strong SW winds.

Friday will be best on the Mid with a good easing swell from 2-3ft under weakening S/SW winds, while the South Coast will remain poor with a solid easing swell and fresh but easing SW winds.

This weekend onwards (Jul 19 onwards)

A general easing trend in size is due through the weekend, but this will be temporarily slowed by a reinforcing SW groundswell arriving through Saturday morning.

Winds at this stage are a little undecided due to the models being divergent on the developments off the East Coast surrounding a strong cold outbreak but we'll likely see variable breezes Saturday morning creating clean conditions and then light winds from the East into Sunday. We'll review this again on Wednesday though so check back then for an update.