South Australian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 4th July)

Best Days: Mid Coast: stormy surf Fri/Sat with small waves on the metro beaches. Sun: rapidly improving, easing surf. Mon/Tues: small, becoming smaller but clean. South Coast: Mon: light variable winds, strong S/SW groundswell. Tues-Fri: light offshore winds, slowly easing surf though plenty of great waves. 

Recap: Very small, windy conditions at Victor. Bumpy NW windswell on the Mid Coast.

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This week and weekend (Jul 3 - 6)

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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.

There's no major surf size yet but that’s all about to change.

A series of strong fronts will push through our region from Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning, delivering strong NW tending W then SW winds, and large swells.

Initially, Thursday will start out small with a combination of NW windswell and small W’ly groundswell along the Mid Coast. Surf size will remain very small but clean down south with strengthening offshores. Wave heights (windswell) will build in sync with the strengthening winds.

Friday will see a large increase in W’ly swell - a broad spectrum of energy - though conditions will remain very stormy across the Mid Coast with anywhere between 3ft and 5ft of washing machine conditions on offer. Small waves are also possible up on the metro beaches, though the upper end of the Mid’s size range (and any potential across metro beaches) will be heavily depending on local wind strength (more than 30kts) duration (more than 6 hours during the day) and direction (between the SW and NW). Any deviations away from these parameters will impact surf size. 

We’ll start to see little more size at Victor on Friday as the primary swell source moves under the state, but local winds will create challenging conditions at most spots. Occasional periods of W/NW winds are possible but overall it looks pretty blustery. Middleton should pick up some windy 2-3ft sets but I can’t see there being anything of great value. 

This weekend (Jul 7 - 8)

A much more powerful front, steered by an active node of the Long Wave Trough (see below) will push into our region early Saturday, delivering squally SW winds across the coast and a proper 3-5ft Mid Coast stormy throughout the day with small waves on the metro beaches. 

Surf size will increase rapidly throughout the day at Victor though with these winds there won’t be many workable options. Exposed coasts could be looking at easy 8-10ft+ sets by the afternoon - check the core fetch of 50+ winds aimed right into the region. We don't see such powerful systems aimed this week in our region, so surf size will be greatly elevated at Victor compared to more typical SW or W/SW orientated systems (of which wave heights are partially shadowed due to the coastal alignment and Kangaroo Island).

Winds will ease rapidly through Sunday though remain some form of onshore down at Victor, with only an outside chance for an early W’ly around Victor. Size will slowly ease from 6-8ft to 4-6ft at exposed spots and there’ll be bumpy, though workable waves on offer along the Port Elliot - Dump stretch. 

On the Mid Coast we’ll see rapidly easing winds too, with a reasonable chance they’ll drop below 10kts and tend variable - though lumpy conditions will likely persist. Surf size will ease back from 3-4ft to 2-3ft throughout the day - it’ll be well worth a surf but certainly not quite photogenic. 

Next week (July 9 onwards)

Actually, the best low of this entire sequence (for the South Coast, anyway) looks like it’ll develop over the weekend, at the tail end of the Long Wave Trough, south of WA and SA along the Ice Shelf (see below), working on the pre-existing active sea state generated over the previous days. It'll reach maximum strength just as it pushes through the eastern periphery of our swell window but I reckon there's a decent opportunity for a solid pulse of energy to start the working week.

Winds should remain light at Victor and we should see a strong pulse pushing back up into the 5-6ft+ range at most coasts, wth a little more south in its direction than we usually see. Monday is therefore the pick of the forecast period down south. 

In fact Tuesday and Wednesday looks great with light to moderate N’ly winds returning and moderate swells persisting thanks to a series of modest lows and fronts through the Southern Ocean. Smaller waves are expected later next week with continuing offshores. So, the entire week looks unreal, to be honest.

As for the Mid Coast, Monday’s swell will be too south to benefit the gulf (thanks to the shadowing from Kangaroo Island), but with light winds it’ll be nice and clean. Surf size will slowly ease from Monday through the working week, so make the most of the first few days where we may see as few stray two footers on the more favourable parts of the tide. I’ll be very small indeed by mid-week.

See you Friday!