South Australia Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 25th May)

Best Days: Thursday: building swell on both coasts and improving conditions as winds ease. Friday: who doesn't love a good ol' stormy? Saturday: fun leftovers on the Mid Coast early. Sunday: good conditions and easing swells at Victor.

Recap: Easing swells and freshening northerly winds across both coasts, best suited to Victor Harbor.

This week (May 26th - 27th)

Thursday is still on target for some good waves across both coasts.

A weak front is expected to clip the region overnight, swinging our current nor'wester around to the south-west. But no major strength is likely - we may see moderate to maybe fresh W/SW winds early morning (mainly at Victor) but they’ll ease to under 10kts by lunchtime and veer W/NW into the afternoon. Lighter winds will prevail across the Mid Coast. 

A combination of two new swells should lift surf size to 2-3ft across the Mid Coast during the day, though the sets will be very inconsistent. Aim for an afternoon surf for the best waves and conditions.

Bigger waves are expected at Victor but the westerly component in the swell direction will limit size, especially in close to Victor Harbor. Middleton’s likely to peak somewhere between 3ft and maybe 5ft by late afternoon, with smaller waves expected across both coasts early morning. 

Friday will be dominated by pre-frontal NW winds tending gale force SW in the wake of the change. Wave heights on the Mid Coast will be dependent on local wind speed, but there’s likely to be at least 3ft of underlying groundswell, with potentially another foot or two of windswell on top. Even the metro beaches should see a small stormy throughout the afternoon.

Down south, Friday will mainly see easing swells from Thursday (3-4ft down to 2-3ft at Middleton) ahead of a late kick in new W/SW swell behind the change. The early morning’s easing swell will be accompanied by strengthening NW tending W/NW winds so you’ll really need to look for some shelter. Winds are due to swing W/SW between 9-10am (at this stage) so it’s only going to be a brief window at best.

This weekend (Saturday 28th - Sunday 29th)

A small low is expected to form just west of Mount Gambier overnight on Friday, and will slingshot a secondary front into the coast, leaving cold southerly winds in its wake on Saturday. They’ll abate rapidly during the day - in fact the Victor region could go from 20-25kts at dawn to under 10kts by early-mid afternoon, however the damage will have been done on the surface.

There will be plenty of swell though; a peaky mix of W/SW and S/SW swells with maybe 3ft to occasionally 5ft sets at many beaches. Keep your expectations very low though.

Sunday will see a massive improvement as winds swing NE thanks to a dominant high and an approaching front from the west. This should create lovely clean conditions though on a dropping combination of swells, somewhere in the 2-3ft range at Middleton. Sometimes these peaky leftover swells produce good waves across otherwise bankless beaches, so it'll be worth sniffing something out. 

On the Mid Coast, the weekend’s looking at easing swells from Friday both days, with moderate S/SE tending S’ly winds Saturday ahead of light NE winds tending moderate N’ly on Sunday.

Saturday looks like your best bet as it’ll have the most size (early 2ft, maybe occ 2-3ft sets down to 1-2ft during the day), whilst Sunday will probably level out in the 1ft to very occasional 2ft range, with the biggest waves on the more favourable parts of the tide. 

Next week (Monday 30th onwards)

We’ve still got an active South Ocean period ahead however there are two distinct features: (1) all activity in our near or mid-range swell window looks to be quite unconsolidated (so, not great for producing quality surf), and (2) some intense storm activity - generating excellent groundswell events - will develop much further west, in our far swell window (so, the large travel distance will erode a significant percentage of their size).

Short version is there’s nothing to pin our hats on right now, but we will see surfable waves most days. If I had to ball park the first half and the second half of the week, right now I’d anticipate small, inconsistent long period swells from Mon thru’ Wed (producing fun small runners on the Mid Coast), with the second half of next week and the following weekend looking much better for larger surf prospects. More on this in Friday’s update.