South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 17th February)

Best Days: Early South Coast Saturday for keen surfers, mid-morning Monday for keen surfers, Tuesday morning

Recap

Small waves across the South Coast yesterday morning, tiny on the Mid, but late morning a strong new S/SW swell kicked in, providing good waves off Middleton even though winds freshened from the south.

Today winds swung W/NW through the morning creating clean conditions along with good easing 3-4ft sets. The Mid Coast was tiny and onshore.

This weekend and next week (Feb 18 – 24)

Later yesterday's and this morning's S/SW groundswell was just the pre-cursor to a larger winteresque SW groundswell due over the weekend.

As talked about the last few updates, a vigorous polar front which formed south-west of WA, has been moving slowly through our south-western swell window while pushing up towards the Bight.

The front is continuing to generate a vast fetch of SW gales through our south-western swell window and will push up from a more southern direction over the coming 24-36 hours, producing a reinforcing large S/SW swell for Sunday.

The first pulse of SW groundswell will be visible at dawn tomorrow, building towards a peak through the middle of the day/afternoon to 6ft at Middleton (much larger at Waits and Parsons), while the Mid Coast looks to offer onshore 1-2ft surf.

Sunday should then see the surf hanging around 5-6ft off Middleton most of the day with the new S/SW swell while the Mid Coast should ease from 1-2ft.

Winds tomorrow might be W'ly for a short period around Victor, favouring protected breaks, but a gusty SW'ly will kick in from mid-morning.

Sunday's winds look more average with less of a chance of an early W'ly.

Into the start of next week the S/SW swell will ease back from 3-5ft or so across Middleton and winds will unfortunately linger from the S'th, although tending lighter mid-late morning. The Mid Coast will be clean but tiny.

Tuesday looks the best day to surf down South with an offshore N/NE wind and easing surf from 2-3ft or so off Middleton (4ft at Waits and Parsons).

As touched on last update, we've got another dose of significant swell due late week as another vigorous polar frontal progression fires up in the Bight.

This looks to be more favourable for the Mid Coast regarding direction, along with S'ly winds, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!