South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 25th February)

Best Days: Mid Coast beginners tomorrow, South Coast early Saturday afternoon desperate surfers

Recap

Lumpy though surfable waves on the South Coast Saturday, cleaner Sunday but only small to tiny. The Mid Coast was clean though tiny all weekend.

Today the surf has remained tiny down South, flat on the Mid Coast.

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

This week and weekend (Feb 26 – Mar 3)

As touched on in Friday's notes, this week will unfortunately be plagued by onshore winds and small swells.

A S'ly change due this afternoon will be associated with a surface trough and then high moving in from the west, bringing average moderate to fresh S/SE winds tomorrow.

A tiny pulse of W/SW groundswell due across the Mid Coast is still on track, generated by a burst of W/SW gales in our far swell window late last week. Only a tiny 1ft wave is due tomorrow, with sets to possibly 1.5ft if we're lucky into the afternoon with long waits between sets. The South Coast will just see a poor increase in S/SE windswell.

A slightly better mid-period SW swell should arrive later in the day and peak Wednesday, produced by a weaker but broader fetch of strong and slow moving W/SW winds through our south-western swell window, with the front currently weakening south-west of Tassie.

Middleton should see 2ft to occasionally 3ft sets off this swell source, with the Mid Coast persisting at 1ft to possibly 1.5ft. Winds will remain average down South and out of the SE, possibly tending lighter E/SE for a period ahead of S/SE sea breezes.

The swell will ease Thursday from a small 2ft max off Middleton and a lingering trough to our east will direct average S'ly winds into the South Coast, offshore from the NE Friday morning but with no size leftover. Even Waits and Parsons will struggle to offer 1-2ft surf.

The weekend will start clean with a fresh N/NE offshore, tending N/NW ahead of a late afternoon W/SW change. The surf will remain small to tiny, with an inconsistent SW groundswell building into the afternoon not offering any major size owing to it being generated in our far swell window.

Middleton might build to 1-2ft, with 2ft to possibly 3ft sets at Waits and Parsons but the change will be on the way. A touch more size is likely Sunday though with S'ly winds in the wake of Saturday afternoon's change.

Longer term the outlook remains slow with small swell pulses and lighter winds early next week. There's a possible stronger swell on the cards for later next week but with S/SE winds, more on this Wednesday though.