South Australian Forecast (issued Friday 15th December)

Best Days: Keen surfers protected spots down South tomorrow morning, exposed breaks Sunday morning, Monday morning, Tuesday, Friday morning

Recap

Poor waves across the South Coast yesterday with onshore winds and a building mix of windswell and groundswell, while the Mid was a sloppy 1-2ft, improving in power and conditions into the afternoon evening with better 2ft+ sets.

This morning the W/SW swell has held in at a good 2ft+ with offshore winds, while the South Coast offered plenty of size but poor conditions with a fresh E'ly wind.

This weekend and next week (Jan 16 - 22)

South Coast: Today's S'ly swell on the South Coast will be short-lived due to the mid-latitude low generating it, pushing off quickly to the east yesterday. Weak leftovers of S'ly swell are due to 2-3ft across most locations, strongest at Waits and Parsons.

Winds are expected to swing around to the E again tomorrow morning creating workable conditions in protected locations, but there'll be a lot of peak and wobble to the surf.

Sunday will be much cleaner with a light morning NE offshore but the swell looks small with inconsistent and weak 1-2ft sets at Middleton and 2ft+ waves at Waits and Parsons.

Later in the day a new S/SW groundswell is expected to fill in, peaking Monday morning.

The source of this swell was a broad and strong polar frontal progression, but the formation of a stronger, tighter low within the progression isn't expected to take place any more.

This will impact the size due a touch, with Middleton on Monday morning due to offer 2ft to occasionally 3ft sets, with 3-4ft waves out Waits and Parsons, easing through the afternoon and smaller but steadying into Tuesday.

Conditions will be good Monday morning with a N/NE offshore ahead of afternoon sea breezes, while N/NE tending N/NW winds are due most of Tuesday ahead of a late W'ly change.

Come Wednesday morning there isn't due to be any real size left across the coast but conditions will be clean under NW offshores.

Later Wednesday and more so Thursday a good pulse of SW groundswell is due, generated by a strong polar frontal progression firing up south-west of Tassie.

The models have been moving around a bit regarding this system, but we're now due to see a good fetch of pre-frontal W/NW gales followed by post-frontal W/SW gales through our south-western swell window.

A moderate sized SW groundswell is expected, with good 3-4ft sets at Middleton with 5ft+ waves at Waits and Parsons, but a mid-latitude low moving in from the west Wednesday evening is due to bring gusty SW winds.

Friday is likely to see W/NW offshores with a secondary pulse of SW groundswell, but we'll have another look at this Monday.

Mid Coast: Today's good pulse of S/SW swell will drop right back overnight with the swell swinging more S'ly in direction leaving fading but clean 1ft+ sets across the coast.

Tiny to flat waves are then due Sunday, with a slight kick Monday to 0.5-1ft if we're lucky.

Thursday's SW groundswell isn't expected to offer much above 1ft, but the mid-latitude low moving in from the west should bring with it 1-2ft of SW windswell, holding a similar size Friday. More on this Monday though. Have a great weekend!