South Australian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 23rd September)

Best Days: Mid Coast: small teaser lines most days, not really worth any major attention. South Coast: Sat/Sun: small clean swells with light N/NE winds. 

Recap: Small building swells dominated the Mid Coast Tuesday with mainly light to moderate S/SE winds. Conditions were terrible but sizeable down south with onshore winds. Small glassy leftovers prevailed across the Mid Coast this morning, with some lovely shaped waves on the reefs with early light SE winds now moderate to fresh S/SE. Wave heights are slowly easing at the CdC buoy but there are still 1-2ft sets on offer every now and then (see image below from 4:08pm). It’s terrible mess down south with solid surf but fresh E’ly winds now S/SE.

South Port, 4:08pm Wednesday

This week (Sep 24 - 25)

No notable surf is expected for the rest of the week.

The current SW groundswell is slowly easing so we’ll be back to teaser lines across the Mid Coast on Thursday (inconsistent 1ft sets) however it will be clean under a light morning offshore breeze.

Conditions will remain very ordinary down south with a persistent SE flow, albeit lighter in strength than the last few days. Surf size will also ease but with the poor conditions it's not really worth bothering with.

Friday has a small bump of new swell on the cards, but it’ll be very inconsistent owing to its distant origin from a polar low that developed east of Heard Island on Monday. This probably won’t be enough to lift the Mid Coast above teaser-status (very inconsistent 0.5-1ft waves, maybe 1-1.5ft every twenty minutes on the incoming tide) so Victor is likely to be the best option as local winds ease and swing to the E/NE.

However, we are still looking at quite a lot of residual surface lump and bump from the recent onshores. Ideally, we need a synoptic wind from the northern quadrant of at least 10-12kts for four to six hours to efficiently iron things out. As this is not likely, even if winds swing light NE (as is possible early morning) there’ll still be the legacy of the onshores from earlier in the week. But, if you can tuck into a sheltered eastern corner you may do OK.

Size should hover somewhere in the 2-3ft range at Middleton with bigger options at Waits and Parsons, but there’ll be long breaks between the bigger sets. On the whole, keep your expectations low.

This weekend (Sep 26 - 27)

A slow moving high pressure system is expected to maintain light to moderate N/NE winds all weekend as a low pressure trough in the western Bight develops and slowly tracks eastward. This should favour good waves across the Victor coast, which is handy timing for weekend warriors.

The surf will continue to extend from a polar low passage through the Far Southern Ocean at the moment, however model guidance is indicating surf size will fall away through Sunday as we push off the peak of the initial SW energy. As such, aim for a surf on Saturday for the biggest and best waves. 

Size wise, Saturday should maintain inconsistent 2-3ft surf at Middleton, with bigger bombs at Goolwa, Waits and Parsons. Expect smaller surf through Sunday but generally clean conditions across most coasts as we will have had a longer period of favourably light winds by this time, to assist in the cleanup process. 

Along the Mid Coast, it’s highly likely that we’re looking at another repetitive round of inconistent, tidally affected teaser swell in the 1ft+ range on Saturday, easing slightly into Sunday. We may see some meagre waves for longboarders and beginners but on the balance Victor looks like the preferred option this weekend.

Next week (Sep 28 onwards)

Still nothing major on the radar for next week at this stage.

As the trough in the Bight tracks eastward, it’s expected to eventually bring a southerly wind change to our region - probably later Monday or maybe Tuesday (we need some flexibility on the timing; troughs are noxiously fickle to get right, especially at long range). However at this early stage it doesn’t look like it’ll be a swell producer for either the Mid or South Coasts.

Nevertheless, another polar low is expected to intensify immediately S/SW of West Oz (off the ice shelf) on Friday, and it’ll generate a new SW swell that is due to push through on Monday, probably in the afternoon.

At this stage no major size is expected and as per the above comments regarding the trough, local winds may spoil its arrival. So, right now I think we’ll start the week with small clean waves at the Victor swell magnets ahead of the afternoon increase, and tiny to flat conditions across the Mid Coast. 

Otherwise, the rest of next week looks small and lacklustre as a large blocking pattern develops across the south-eastern Indian Ocean, ahead of a major intensification of the Long Wave Trough in the Central/Southern Indian Ocean through the early to middle part of next week.

Initially, this pattern looks like it’ll be focused up into Indonesia (and will probably generate a very large late season groundswell in the 10-12ft+ range around Oct 4/5) however it appears that it’ll be quite a few days before it migrates into a favourable part of the SA swell window. Early indications are for some small long range SW swell energy throughout the second half of next week, but without any major size or strength. I don’t think we’ll see anything notable from this system until the first half of the following week, although there is a chance that we’ll see a long range W’ly swell for the Mid Coast next weekend. 

Either way, most of next week looks small and uninteresting with bigger, better prospects expected to start appearing from next weekend through into the following week - but I’ll evaluate all of this in more detail in Friday’s notes.