South Australian Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 20th June)

Best Days: Mid Coast: Late Fri (outside chance), Sat/Sun: fun though inconsisent groundswell with good winds. South Coast: small and clean Thurs/Fri, lumopy but improving and fun/solid Sunday. Clean but easing Mon/Tues.

Recap: Rapidly easing S’ly swells and N’ly winds have provided small clean waves at Victor, with very small surf across the Mid.

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This week (June 21 - 22)

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

Small surf is expected to persist for the next few days, with a weakening front clipping the coast today, creating light variable winds in its wake on Thursday. 

At some point on Friday, we’ll see the leading edge of a new long period groundswell that’s due to provide plenty of surf for the weekend.

The models slightly tweaked the dynamics of the Southern Indian Ocean low generating this energy; easing back the primary fetch but slightly intensifying a secondary polar well to the south (though still a long way from our coast).

At this stage I’m still not confident that we’ll see a notable increase before mid-afternoon on the Mid Coast, so you’ll have to watch the surfcams for signs of life. As mentioned on Monday, 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.

Regardless, I can’t rule out the potential for a late kick into the 2ft+ range across the Mid Coast, and a small increase at Victor too. Winds will be around to the NW by this time but shouldn’t be too strong. I’ll update in the comments below as more info comes to hand. 

This weekend (June 23 - 24)

We’ve got a few changes in store for the weekend outlook.

As mentioned above, the models slightly tweaked the dynamics of the low generating our weekend’s long period groundswell. In addition to easing the primary fetch and intensifying a secondary polar well to the south (see chart below), it also strengthened the front pushing south of the state later this week, and tracked it a little further north. 

So, this has pulled back size/consistency expectations for the W/SW component, but upped the size potential for a secondary SW swell that’ll fill in on Sunday. The long and short is that we’ll see a little more size at Victor through the second part of the weekend, but I’m just going to pull back on my Mid Coast expectations both days.

Both days should see wave heights reaching 2ft+ on the Mid Coast, though it’ll be very inconsistent. Of the two days, Saturday is more likely to see a few bigger sets, which is the opposite of the South Coast’s trend (where Sunday will be a little bigger). Victor Harbour should see solid 3-4ft+ surf building through Saturday at Middleton, holding 3-5ft into Sunday. Expect bigger waves at the more exposed parts of the coast. 

The weekend’s winds will favour the Mid Coast nicely both days (mainly SE Saturday, then E’ly Sunday) but Saturday looks a little patchy at Victor with mainly moderate onshore winds (outside chance for a period of early W’ly winds). Sunday on the other hand should see reasonably clean conditions down south with light variable winds. 

Let’s fine tune things in Friday’s update. 

Next week (June 25 onwards)

Easing swells and winds are expected next week; there’s a few relatively standard winter swell systems on the cards mid-late week but nothing to pin down at this stage. Otherwise expect E’ly tending N’ly winds early in the week with easing swells from the weekend.