South Australian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 6th July)

Best Days: Mid Coast: Sat: stormy surf, small waves on metro beaches. Sun: rapidly improving with easing winds, still plenty of surf. Mon/Tues: small and easing but clean. South Coast: Mon: rapidly improving conditions, large S/SW swells. Tues thru' Sat: light variable tending offshore winds, slowly easing surf. 

Recap: Building stormy surf on the Mid with onshore gales. Small at Victor with strengthening NW tending W’ly winds, though size is now starting to increase.

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

This weekend (Jul 7 - 8)

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.

Another vigorous front will cross the coast overnight, resulting in another day of stormy surf conditions across the Mid Coast. The only difference this time is that winds will veer more SW, compared to today’s W’ly tending W/NW flow.

The low pressure system driving this front is a beauty, and it’s aimed fair and square into Kangaroo Island (see chart below).

We’re going to see some impressive wave heights at the Cape du Couedic buoy over the coming 24 hours (if it holds its mooring), though there won’t be much in the way of quality surf. We should see small waves across the metro beaches, solid 3-5ft surf across the Mid Coast and at Victor, exposed coasts could reach 8-10ft+ throughout the day as the swell reaches a peak. There may be small waves at novelty spots close to Victor, though the swell direction will still be slightly W of SW so it'll be pretty small here (then again there won't be many other spots worth a look!). 

Rapidly easing onshore winds and slowly abating wave heights are expected into Sunday; it’s unlikely we’ll see a great deal of improvement at Victor however the Mid Coast should clean up quite a bit - there’s even a chance for winds to become light and variable at times, mainly late afternoon. With 3-4ft surf easing to 2-3ft through the day there’ll be plenty of lumpy though workable options.

Down south expect 5-6ft+ surf across most open spots with smaller, bumpy waves across the Chiton/Dump stretch.

Next week (July 9 onwards)

As mentioned in Wednesday’s notes, for my eyes the best low of this entire sequence - for Victor at least - looks like it’ll develop over the weekend, at the tail end of the LWT, south of WA and SA, working on the pre-existing active sea state generated over the previous days (see chart above). 

Additionally, we’ll be under a light variable wind regime by this time as a broad high moves in from the west, so conditions will be a lot better - though the odd wobble here and there is still likely down south for the morning session. Surf size should rebuild back up into the 6ft+ range across exposed spots throughout the day, and there’ll be a little more south in the swell direction, so expect slightly bigger surf (proportionally) across sheltered breaks closer to Victor, compared to the weekend’s W/SW tending SW swells.

This swell won’t be very well aimed for the Mid Coast though so we’ll mainly be looking at residual, easing size from 2ft+ here. Conditions will however be nice and clean with light offshore winds. 

Steadily easing wave heights are then expected from Tuesday onwards (though still solid down south early with 4-6ft sets early morning), and we’re looking at an extended period of light and variable gradually tending N/NE winds. So despite easing surf size, there’ll be excellent waves at Victor all week.

Don’t expect a lot of surf on the Mid though; it probably won’t go flat but from Tuesday onwards it’ll be smaller and weaker and much more tidally susceptible. 

Long term has nothing significant on the radar either.

Have a great weekend!