South Australian Forecast (issued Monday 26th October)

Best Days: Tuesday morning keen surfers down South, Saturday morning small clean waves, Sunday morning

Recap

Peaky and fun but not perfect conditions Saturday with a strengthening NE tending E/NE breeze and solid easing swell. Locations that like the easterly wind faired best through the morning.

Sunday was clean and straight early but much smaller with exposed breaks the go, although winds quickly swung W/NW and strengthened, limiting options. The Mid Coast was tiny all weekend, with choppy through yesterday.

An onshore change has moved through today kicking up a junky windswell across the South Coast with fresh to strong S/SE winds. The Mid Coast didn't really see any size with peaky 0.5fters across the beaches.

This week (Oct 27 – 30)

South Coast: Our strong pulse of S/SW groundswell for tomorrow is tracking along nicely, with a vigorous polar frontal system generating a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds through our southern window over the weekend.

This should see most locations kick to 3-5ft tomorrow morning down South, with larger 5-6ft sets at Waits and Parsons but with tricky and less than ideal winds. A fresh to strong E/SE'ly at dawn should ease and tend more E/NE mid-morning, but the surf will still be quite peaky/bumpy and unorganised (only for keen surfers).

S/SE sea breezes are due mid-late afternoon, so the mid to midday session may reveal the best results.

The swell will drop away rapidly into Wednesday and the possible variable breezes due through the morning aren't likely to eventuate any more with a building ridge of high pressure across the state due to bring fresh S/SE breezes.

These fresh to strong onshores will kick up building levels of S/SE windswell which looks to become the dominant energy into Thursday and Friday morning. A small to moderate sized S/SW groundswell is due to be in the mix Thursday afternoon and Friday morning though, produced by a less than favourably aligned but broad and strong fetch of W/NW gales along the polar shelf.

Conditions will remain poor Thursday though with fresh E/SE tending S/SE winds, with some relief from the onshores likely Friday in the form of variable breezes developing through the morning. The swell will still be quite raw, peaky and unorganised in any case.

Mid Coast: The Mid isn't due to pick up much of tomorrow's S/SW swell at all with tiny 0.5-1ft waves max if we're lucky, fading through Wednesday and becoming tiny to flat.

This weekend onwards (Oct 31 onwards)

South Coast: Saturday will start out small ahead of a new long-range and inconsistent SW groundswell later in the afternoon, easing Sunday.

This groundswell is being generated by another broad and strong pre-frontal fetch of W/NW gales south-west of WA over the coming days. The frontal system will break down south of a line drawn under about Esperance, leaving an inconsistent SW groundswell to move up towards us.

The swell should kick to 2-3ft later in the afternoon at Middleton with 4ft sets at Waits and Parsons, easing from a touch smaller size early Sunday.

Winds should be variable both Saturday and Sunday mornings creating fun conditions for keen surfers, but remember Saturday morning will be smaller.

Mid Coast: The Mid will remain flat Saturday morning with a possibly kick to 0.5ft late Saturday, easing from a similar size Sunday morning.

Longer term onshore winds for the South Coast and small to moderate S/SW groundswell pulses are due early next week, but we'll review this Wednesday.