South Australian Forecast (issued Wednesday 17th February)

Best Days: Thursday and Friday mornings down South, Sunday and Monday mornings down South

Recap

Poor onshore winds with a solid reinforcing SW swell across the South Coast yesterday, much better on the Mid with 2ft sets continuing.

The swell has started to drop back through today from a clan 1-1.5ft on the Mid Coast and a bumpy but workable 3-4ft across the South Coast with lighter onshore winds.

This week and weekend (Feb 18 - 21)

South Coast: Cleaner conditions are due into tomorrow with a light NE breeze through the morning and good easing S'ly swell from 2-3ft across most locations and up to 3ft+ at Waits and Parsons.

A new kick in SW groundswell is due Friday morning from an unfavourably aligned fetch of pre-frontal NW gales through our swell window the last two days.

Middleton should continue to offer 2-3ft sets, with 4ft waves at Waits and Parsons, easing into the afternoon. Winds are due to be light and more variable through the morning ahead of a gusty S/SE change through the late morning.

Into Saturday a new S/SW groundswell is expected to build, linked to a strengthening polar front pushing towards Tasmania over the coming days. An initial fetch of strong SW winds should reach the gale-force range just before moving further east out of our swell window.

A good kick in S/SW swell should be seen to 3ft+ across Middleton into the afternoon and 4-5ft at Waits and Parsons, although with poor SE winds.

Sunday is the day to surf as winds swing around to the NE through the morning with a small easing S/SW swell from 2ft+ at Middleton and 3-4ft at Waits and Parsons.

Mid Coast: Tiny 0.5-1ft leftovers are due through tomorrow and Friday with the new SW groundswell failing to offer any real size.

The weekend's S/SW swell will also remain tiny with 0.5ft surf more than likely both Saturday and Sunday.

Next week onwards (Feb 22 onwards)

South Coast: Good clean conditions are due again Monday morning with good offshore N/NE winds again and easing surf, best suited to Waits and Parsons.

Fun pulses of SW groundswell are then due through most of the week with favourable winds Wednesday morning, ahead of a possible larger groundswell Friday from a vigorous polar frontal progression. We'll have another look at this Friday.

Mid Coast: The SW swells through Tuesday to Thursday next week don't look to offer much above 0.5-1ft, while the swell later in the week should produce more size but more on this Friday.