South Australian Forecast (issued Monday 20th October)

Best Days: Tuesday, Friday morning

Recap

Saturday morning started off good with clean 2-3ft waves along the Middleton stretch with bigger sets at Waits under a straight offshore breeze, but this quickly became too strong from the NW creating average conditions across most spots. A late drop in wind into the evening created good conditions for the late session for those who hung down the coast.

Sunday was smaller and nice and clean through the morning before a change around midday, writing off the surf for the rest of the day.

Today a new long-range SW groundswell mixed in with some SE windswell has come in at a sloppy 3-4ft down South with fresh and gusty E'ly winds, while the Mid Coast hasn't picked up any size at all unfortunately with clean tiny 0.5ft surf.

This week (Oct 21 – 24)

Only two windows of decent conditions will present themselves over the coming week and that'll be tomorrow and Friday.

Today's mix of swells are expected to ease off through tomorrow across the South Coast from 2-3ft at Middleton and 3-4ft out at Waits and Parsons under fresh and gusty offshore NE-NNE winds that should ease into the afternoon.

A surface trough moving in from the west will bring with it an onshore change tomorrow night and this will remain fresh from the SW into Wednesday morning with small to tiny amounts of swell. There's an outside chance for an early W'ly but it won't be worth a trip from the city. Thursday will be no better as winds persist from the S/SE creating terrible conditions down South.

A new long-range SW groundswell similar to today's is expected to build through Thursday afternoon though, generated by an intense polar low south-west of WA the last few days.

This swell will be extremely inconsistent but strong and come in at 3ft across Middleton, 4ft+ at Waits and 0.5-1ft on the Mid later Thursday.

A drop in size is then due through Friday from 2-3ft across Middleton and 3-4ft at Waits with favourable offshores from the N/NE ahead of another surface trough moving in from the west. Get in before lunch though as SE sea breezes will pop up through the day.

This weekend onwards (Oct 25 onwards)

The weekend isn't looking too flash with small amounts of leftover swell across the South Coast and tiny waves on the Mid.

Middleton is only expected to putter along at 1-2ft all weekend, with 2ft to possibly 3ft bombs at Waits and Parsons.

Winds look dicey with a weak change in the wake of the trough moving across us due Saturday with only a short-lived period of offshore winds due Saturday morning - if at all - and then funky variable winds from the east into Sunday which we'll have to nail down in the coming forecasts.

Longer term some better SW groundswell is due into the middle of next week but with what looks to be average winds. More on this Wednesday though.