South Australian Forecast (issued Monday 5th January)

Best Days: Wednesday down South, Thursday morning down South, possibly Sunday down South

Recap

Light onshore winds at dawn on Saturday and a small swell offered a limited window of OK conditions across the South Coast before a stronger onshore change moved through mid-morning.

Sunday was a write-off and poor with fresh to strong onshore winds and a touch more swell.

The Mid Coast however started tiny before a good pulse of new SW groundswell filled in through the afternoon, reaching an easy 2ft as winds swung back SE late cleaning it up for the late session.

Today the swell was easing from the smaller 1-1.5ft range under offshores across the Mid, while the South Coast saw a short reprieve in onshores during the early to mid-morning before the SE'ly winds kicked in again.

This week (Jan 6 - 9)

Tomorrow is a good lay day with the swell becoming tiny on the Mid while the South Coast will be small and only workable for a period through the morning as winds tend E'ly before reverting back to the S/SE.

Wednesday is the better day to surf as a good new SW groundswell arrives, generated by strong and broad polar frontal activity to the south-west of WA over the last couple of days.

This frontal activity is currently weakening to our south-west, with the SW groundswell pushing up and arriving Wednesday, peaking through the afternoon.

Size wise we should see the Mid Coast come in at 1-1.5ft on the incoming tide through the afternoon, while the South Coast should see Middleton building to 3ft, with 3-5ft sets at Waits and Parsons.

Winds look great for down South and average for the Mid into the afternoon with N/NE tending NW winds ahead of a late afternoon/evening SW change.

Therefore get out through the mid-late morning for the best of the swell down South.

Thursday will be a good day to hit the South Coast again with an easing swell from 2-3ft at Middleton and 3-4ft at Waits under early N/NW winds ahead of a gusty S'ly change. The Mid Coast will be clean early but likely only 1ft or so.

Friday will be poor and onshore from the S/SE with no options for a decent wave across both coasts.

This weekend onwards (Jan 10 onwards)

The weekend will start out poor with strengthening onshore S/SE winds across the South Coast and building levels of windswell.

A deepening inland surface trough moving down from our north, towards Victoria will bring funky winds and possible torrential rain over the weekend. The models are still diverging around the track and movement of this system but we may see it move east of us Sunday, swinging winds back offshore with a fun peaky easing windswell.

We'll have a closer look at this on Wednesday though.