South Australian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 27th June)

Best Days: Mid Coast: Fri PM if you dig stormies. Sat: small lumpy leftovers, best in the arvo. Looking busy later next week and weekend too. South Coast: Thurs: tiny clean surf. Sun/Mon: moderate swells with offshore winds, easing Tues but remaining clean. Possibly increasing Wed with offshores.

Recap: Wave heights have been pretty small across the coast for the last few days. A small sneaky swell filled into the gulf this morning though it hasn’t provided much size (as expected) - see image below from the Trigs surfcam.

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

This week (Jun 26 - 29)

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. Also, these Forecaster Notes will be updated Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays for the next few weeks.

Small surf will persist at Victor on Thursday and Friday, with freshening NW winds Thursday becoming strong to gale force Friday ahead of a lunchtime W’ly change. 

Thursday will remain tiny on the Mid but Friday’s onshore winds will build a local stormy across the Mid Coast. Model guidance has winds going fresh W’ly mid-late morning on the Mid - not quite enough for any immediate appreciable size - with the strongest blow not arriving until very late, which causes a few concerns for a delayed increase in size (if the winds don't kick in properly until after mid-afternoon). 

Nevertheless, I think we’re looking at poor 1-2ft waves early with strengthening NW winds, ahead of the afternoon increase in choppy W’ly swell behind the front - size should reach 2-3ft but if winds are stronger than expected this could increase further to 3-4ft, and provide some small waves on the metro beaches very late.

This weekend (June 30 - July 1)

A series of weak, poorly consolidated fronts and lows will transit through our swell window this week (see chart below), and an associated series of modest though scattered fetches won’t generate a great deal of new swell for us.

The synoptic chart looks good in single snapshots, but unfortunately for us the broader picture of surface winds isn’t in sync and this will maintain relatively low wave heights across most coasts. 

Easing SW winds early Saturday should become light and variable across the Mid Coast by the afternoon, and a series of trailing swells should maintain peaky 2ft+ waves across most breaks on the turn of the tide. Marginally smaller surf is expected into Sunday as this swell eases, and a secondary S/SW swell arriving during the day will be shadowed by Kangaroo Island. However we should see occasional 1-2ft waves with light to moderate NW winds. 

Conditions will remain pretty average at Victor on Saturday under a W/SW flow though early W/NW winds are possible in a few locations. Size will increase into the 3ft range both days at Middleton (bigger at exposed spots) though Sunday will be the pick of the weekend with winds veering to the NW. 

Next week (July 2 onwards)

The most promising part of this weather progression is probably the interaction between a polar low and a pre-frontal W/NW flow to its north, positioned S/SW of WA on Thurs/Fri (see chart above). This should provide a slightly better kick in groundswell for Monday with inconsistent sets in the 3ft+ range at Victor, though this system will probably develop too far east of our swell window to provide a meaningful round of swell on the Mid Coast (that being said, we should see some small, inconsistent 2-34ft waves). 

Winds will strengthen from the north on Monday anyway so the South Coast will be your best. Easing swells are expected Tuesday as winds strengthen from the NW, in fact we may see offshore winds down south through the middle of the week too.

A series of strong fronts through the Southern Ocean SW of WA around this time will then set up more swell for the middle to later part of the week. Once again, the synoptic setup isn’t favourable with unusual meridional alignments through the swell window, and for the most part the majority of swell generation looks like it’ll occur west of western SA longitudes (so, far away enough to have an impact on surf size).

That being said, there’s been quite a few variations in the model guidance over the last few days so chances are reasonable that we’ll see things swing in our favour over future updates - and I’m reasonably confident that the end of next week and the weekend will see some strong westerly swells across the coast.