South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 18th October)

Best Days: Mid Coast Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, South Coast Monday morning

Recap

Small fading surf through yesterday but great at Waits and Parsons down South, while this morning there's not much left in the tank at all this morning. The Mid Coast was tiny both yesterday and this morning.

This week and weekend (Oct 19 - 22)

The surf will remain flat across the South Coast tomorrow, while the Mid Coast should see a tiny increase in W'ly swell from a front passing under WA yesterday. A kick to 1ft is due but with onshore SW winds moving in mid-morning.

This onshore change will be linked to a strong mid-latitude front pushing in from the west and under us, linked to some new W/SW tending SW groundswell on Friday.

The strength of the secondary stage of the low, more in the South Coast's swell window has been downgraded.

So what we should see is a strong pulse of W/SW groundswell through Friday from 1-2ft during the morning up to 2-3ft later in the day with the incoming tide on the Mid Coast, while the South Coast should build from a small 2ft at Middleton up to 3-4ft later in the day.

The swell will then ease through Saturday, back from 2ft on the Mid and 3ft+ off Middleton.

Some small reinforcing S/SW swell should keep Middleton ticking around 2ft to occasionally 3ft Sunday and Monday, generated by trailing fetches of W/NW winds on the back of the low through Friday and Saturday.

The Mid Coast won't benefit from these swells with fading 1-1.5ft sets Sunday, tiny to flat Monday.

Coming back to the expected winds and a high pressure ridge moving in Friday will direct freshening S/SE winds across both regions, favouring the Mid, while Saturday will see S/SE tending S/SW breezes. It looks like S/SW winds will persist Sunday (possibly S'ly early on the Mid).

More variable winds are due Monday creating cleaner conditions down South, finally.

Into the rest of next week there's nothing major due with small amounts of background S/SW swell, but we'll look at this in more detail Friday.