South Australian Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 17th June)

Best Days: Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri: fun at Victor, generally clean with offshores (variable Thurs). Very late Fri/Sat/Sun: strong new swell, fun on the Mid over the weekend with light winds. Very good at Victor too.  

Recap: Onshore winds decimated the weekend’s surf at Victor; easing onshore winds and abating swells provided fun though bumpy waves on the Mid. We’ve still got large surf at Victor today but early variable winds have gone light offshore and conditions are improving. Surf size is pretty small on the Mid but it’s clean with light winds. 

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

Already better at Knights for one bloke's solo lunchtime session

This week (June 19 - 22)

Want to receive an email when these Forecaster Notes are updated? Then log in here and update your preferences.

Note: Today’s Forecaster Notes will be brief, as Craig is away on annual leave.

Today’s southerly groundswell will ease across the South Coast from Tuesday onwards, and conditions will remain clean through into Wednesday as northerly winds freshen in response to approaching (though weakening) cold front. Thanks to the southerly swell direction, there’ll be a relatively uniform size distribution across most beaches so we should see a wide variety of options. 

Unfortunately, with no major new swell sources in the water (and also, with today's swell being very south in direction), we’ll see very small surf persisting along the Mid Coast. And, with these winds conditions won’t be particularly impressive either.

Regionally small swells will persist through Thursday and Friday morning, with mainly light variable winds Thursday tending north-west on Friday and freshening as another front approaches from the west. 

Victor will again be the pick of the region these days, however sometime on Friday - probably early-mid morning - we’ll see a new long period signal at the CdC buoy, and there’s a chance for a late afternoon increase in new swell across the Mid Coast (though this swell will fill in more prominently on Saturday).  

The source of this new swell is a powerful low pressure system currently in the Southern Indian Ocean (see chart below). It’s expected to weaken considerably by the time it reaches Western Australian longitudes, so the associated wave decay from that point onwards will restrict surf size throughout South Australia, and the west component in the swell direction will favour the Mid Coast for some decent waves, local winds pending. 

At this stage I’m hesitant to expect anything worthwhile before mid-afternoon on Friday, but it’s worth pencilling in a late session. The main concern is that we don’t have much tidal movement on Friday, with a 10am high of 1.7m falling to a 4pm low of 1.3m - and this pattern doesn’t typically benefit the Mid Coast - so it’s worth keeping expectations in check, as the local wind outlook isn’t amazing either. However, the peak of the swell (Saturday) should produce 2-3ft surf in the gulf so it'll be well worth monitoring.

I’ll have more on this in Wednesday’s update. 

This weekend (June 23 - 24)

So, the new swell that may arrive late Friday should be with us for all of Saturday, before easing Sunday. It’ll be quite W/SW in direction (so, the Mid Coast should do well from this event), and fortunately a weak high pressure system over the state should result in light variable winds both days. 

Right now we’re looking at inconsistent 2-3ft surf on the Mid on Saturday, easing slowly through Sunday, whilst Victor will see bigger surf on Saturday from 3-4ft+ at Middleton up to 4-6ft at Goowla and Waits (also easing Sunday). However, it’ll be much smaller along the Chiton stretch thanks to the swell direction.

Looks like a good weekend to hit the road in just about any direction. 

Next week (June 25 onwards)

Nothing on the long term radar at this stage.