South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 1st February)

Best Days: South Coast every morning Friday through Sunday

Recap

A bit of new swell on the Mid Coast yesterday but full and slow on the morning high tide, bumpy and bigger into the afternoon before cleaning up late. The South Coast was an onshore mess.

This morning the Mid was a clean 1-1.5ft, and we should see the swell pulse a little with the incoming tide this afternoon, while the South Coast was fun as well with 3ft sets off Middleton.

This week and weekend (Feb 2 – 5)

Today's swell will ease back into tomorrow, ahead of two similar pulse of SW groundswell Friday and Saturday across the region.

Middleton is due to drop back to 2ft+ tomorrow morning (a litttle bigger later) along with S/SW winds in the wake of a shallow change this afternoon. The Mid should be cleaner but only around 1ft.

Friday's and Saturday's swells will come more from the SW, with a broad mid-latitude front currently south-west of us, generating a fetch of strong W/SW winds. This will then be closely followed by a slightly stronger system, but with a more westerly bias in the winds.

The first pulse for Friday morning should see 3ft sets at Middleton again, easing back into the afternoon, with the secondary pulse building to 3ft through the day Saturday, easing back from 2-3ft Sunday morning.

The Mid isn't looking at any major size with tiny 1ft sets.

Friday morning is looking clean across both coasts with a variable tending locally offshore breeze ahead of afternoon sea breezes and then similar conditions Saturday and Sunday mornings. A stronger S/SE change is expected to move through Sunday afternoon, lingering into early next week.

Longer term, early next week looks poor with a small mix of mid-period SW swell and S/SE windswell along with SE winds down South (tiny on the Mid Coast)

Some new swell is due later in the week but with persistent S/SE winds, so it looks like our run of favourable winds and fun W/SW swell is over. More on this Friday.