Fading swell into the end of the week, much more active from the weekend
South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 23rd January)
Best Days: Desperate surfers South Coast magnets tomorrow AM, both coasts Monday and Tuesday mornings next week, Mid Coast Wednesday morning
Recap
Great waves across the South Coast yesterday morning with light variable winds and clean lined up levels of groundswell, swill fun into the afternoon with a moderate to fresh sea breeze. The Mid Coast was tiny to flat in the morning (under expectations) but the incoming tide saw sets push back to an expected 1-2ft with light variable winds creating good fun surf on the magnets.
Today the swell was back to a small and bumpy 2ft down South, but surfable for keen surfers, tiny and clean on the Mid.
Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl
This week and weekend (Jan 24 - 27)
The end of the week isn't too red hot, well the weather will be, but the surf not so.
A moderate to fresh N/NE breeze is due tomorrow morning, tending variable into the afternoon and this will create clean conditions across both coasts, but the Mid will be effectively flat, while the South Coast will be weak and easing from 1ft to maybe 2ft off Middleton, not much bigger at Waits and Parsons/
Friday will then be tiny with average W/SW winds across all locations, with a possible early W'ly down Victor way.
This W/SW breeze will be associated with a weakening mid-latitude moving in from the west but the size potential off this low isn't great at all.
It'll be strongest when sitting off WA today, north of our swell window, with only a small slither of strong W/SW winds generated under WA tomorrow.
With this the Mid Coast only looks to offer tiny 1ft waves on Saturday, if not for the rare bigger one on the favourable parts of the tide, while the South Coast will see an inconsistent new SW groundswell filling in.
The groundswell has been generated the last couple of days by a distant polar low in our far swell window. Middleton should build to 3ft into the late afternoon, if not for the odd sneaky bigger one, tiny with that W/SW windswell on the Mid, easing from a similar size Sunday.
Winds on Saturday look onshore out of the S tending SW down across the South Coast, with an early S/SE breeze on the Mid Coast. Sunday's conditions look a little dicey with a W/SW-SW breeze, that may be W'ly early around Victor.
Of greater importance is a good run of W/SW swell due from Monday through most of next week, owing to back to back frontal systems moving through our western swell window.
An initial polar front projecting from the south-west of WA under the country, will so under the influence of the Long Wave Trough, with stronger mid-latitude fronts due to follow closely on its tail.
This will generate good pulses of W/SW swell, initially mid-period and then stronger through early next week. At this stage the Mid Coast looks to hover around 2ft, with 3ft sets likely at the peak of the event, while Middleton looks to peak around 4ft or so.
Winds look great for both coasts Monday and Tuesday mornings with variable breezes, less favourable Wednesday as a surface trough moves in from the west, but more on this Wednesday.
Comments
Ceduna just reached its all time temperature record of 48.4°C at 2:50pm.
Ah, the glory days of camping at Cactus in the summer hols. On days like this I'd be at the pub at 9am!
Wow!
Yeah, I am surprised it opens its doors so late too. They could do well with a good breaky service.
Cumberland hotel ? board meeting or cliff haha
I've only been outside for five minutes at a time over the past couple of days - it's fucking horrendous and I'm in the Hills, where it's always a few degrees cooler. It's forecast to only get down to 28 overnight, but tomorrow's going to be the killer. 45 in the city, perhaps 42-43 up here.
Fuck summer, bring on autumn!
Shit.. that's insane for the hills. Stay safe mate - always a big bushfire risk on these days.
Lincoln forecast for 46 tomorrow. Crazy stuff
Lincoln is always the one place guaranteed to offer respite from the heat! Bloody hell.
At 4:30am, Port Augusta was already 36.2 degrees, and Ceduna was 36.3 degrees at 4am.
Even Adelaide was 33.9 degrees at 4am! Its overnight min temp was 32.7.
Incredible.
Stick a fork in me, I'm done!
We're in desperate need of some green rooms to get some shade from dis burning sun
Alright! It's just gone 11am and:
Adelaide Airport is 41.2 degrees.
Noarlunga is 41.5 degrees.
Hindmarsh Island is 39.2 degrees (wow.. Victor sometimes offers much cooler conditions than the northern side of the ranges.. not today!)
Over at Yorkes, Minlaton Airport is 44.2 degrees, and Stenhouse Bay is 40.6 degrees (remember it's only 11am!).
And over west, Port Augusta is 45.1 degrees, Cummins is 42.5 degrees, Port Lincoln is 41.9 degrees, and Ceduna is 39.3 degrees. Interesting to note that Nullabor is only 34.6 degrees.
There's still 3-5 hours until we reach the daily Tmax, it'll be very interesting to see if records are broken.
Stay safe (and cool!) everyone.
Here's a nice little inside bowl at Day Street a few seconds ago.
SA BOM: "The first record to tumble is Minlaton on SA's Yorke Peninsula, which has just ticked over 45.7C at 11:08am, beating its previous record of 45.6C on 28 January 2009."
Roseworthy 45.2 and climbing..
Long way from the coast, but still worth mentioning that Alice Springs is currently experiencing its 13th consecutive day above 42 degrees.
Do you normally only forecast a week out here? I thought you could forecast further out due to the longer range swells?
Yep, could go longer for general swell trends but localised weather systems would likely influence the wind forecasts which are the key part to this regions forecasts.
How's the 16 day forecast go? Fairly reliable for size? Any of the forecast locations perform better than others, e.g Middleton vs Waits?
Trend wise good, but when the swell is more southerly it over represents the size for Middleton, but Waitpinga is genrally good.
Yes in my very limited experience there I have found Middleton very underwhelming... Thanks
Records falling everywhere now.
Adelaide (Kent Town) reached 47.0 just before 2:30pm.
Hindmarsh Island reached 46.2 around the same time.
Kadina and Minlaton reached 46.8, Stenhouse Bay 46.3.
Ceduna reached 48.6, Port Lincoln reached 48.3, Port Augusta reached 48.5.
Wowzers.
Ceduna smashed record two days in a row! :o
47.1 Adelaide now.. make that 47.6..
I think the Middleton cam has melted
So, final Tmax for coastal stations (mainly relevant to surf locations, or otherwise of interest) were - from west to east:
Nullabor - 39.5
Ceduna - 48.6
Point Avoid - 38.0
Port Lincoln - 48.3
Port Augusta - 49.5
Stenhouse Bay - 46.7
Edithburgh - 47.9
Kingscote - 45.4
Cape Willoughby - 41.7
Adelaide (Kent Town) - 47.7
Adelaide Airport - 45.8
Noarlunga - 46.2
Parawa - 43.5
Hindmarsh Island - 46.8
Cape Jaffa - 41.8
Robe - 40.1
Mount Gambier - 44.0
40.1 for Robe is unheard of,given that any wind from the north comes off Guichen Bay & generally has a cooling effect!!Same goes for Cape Jaffa.Strange times indeed.
Yeah Cape Willoughby the same.. it’s essentially girt by sea. Just shows how deep the thermal layer was.
I made my escape and flew out from Adelaide on Wednesday afternoon heading to the Gold Coast so I just missed the worst of the heat.
But I had an epic little run of summer swell down there, paddled out with 120 other surfers for Billy Baxter’s memorial at Salmon Hole and did the Surfarama which went off!
Ran into this hardcore surfer girl Bree who took this water shot of me surfing small Pondie. Thanks Bree
