South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 6th November)

Best Days: Protected spots down South tomorrow, keen surfers Sunday Mid Coast, Sunday morning South Coast, Monday morning South Coast

Recap

A window of clean conditions early yesterday on the Mid Coast with fairly consistent waves coming in at 2ft on the swell magnets. The South Coast was best in protected spots, but improved with winds swinging a bit more NW into the afternoon.

Today the Mid Coast is tiny and poor, while the South Coast was clean but small and to 1-2ft off Middleton, best at Waits.

This week and weekend (Nov 7 - 10)

Now that the smaller stuff is done with, we look to an out of season run of westerly winds and larger, windy swells, all linked to the Sudden Stratospheric Warming event a couple of months ago, and the flow on effects.. that being a strong negative Southern Annular Mode (SAM).

If short, the negative SAM event is lifting the westerly storm track further north than normal bringing the coming run of wind and weather.

Currently a strong mid-latitude front is moving in from the west, with it just south of the Bight overnight, generating a fetch of W/SW gales. This is following the earlier stages of the storm, that being an intense low south-west of WA, generating a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds.

We'll see the front moving in and across us this afternoon kicking up an increase in W/SW windswell with the groundswell event peaking tomorrow to 5-6ft off the Middleton stretch and an easy 3ft on the Mid Coast, with likely bigger bombs on the favourable parts of the tide.

Winds will be poor on the Mid Coast and fresh to strong from the W, with the South Coast best in protected spots under a gusty W/NW breeze.

Friday then looks dicey across both coasts as a secondary front pushes in and across us, bringing strong W/SW tending SW winds, possibly W'ly for a very short period around dawn in Victor.

The Mid Coast is expected to be more windswelly and stormy, around 3ft+ with the South Coast easing back from 4-5ft off Middleton.

Saturday still looks poor with S/SW-SW winds across both coasts as the swell from Friday continues to ease and loses energy, becoming mid-period in nature. The Mid Coast looks to be a bumpy 2ft+, with 3ft+ of swell down South.

Another weak polar front clipping the South Coast Saturday should produce a reinforcing S/SW swell for Sunday, maintaining 3ft+ surf, while the Mid Coast will drop back to 1ft to maybe 2ft on the favourable parts of the tide.

Winds are still looking favourable for both coasts with a more variable breeze developing on the Mid Coast through the morning, W/NW down South ahead of S'ly sea breezes.

N/NE winds are then due into Monday but with tiny waves on the Mid, smaller and easing from 2ft off Middleton.

Into the middle to end of the week a strong trough come low is due to move in bringing windy onshore swells though the models diverge a little surrounding the structure, so check back here on Friday for a cleared idea.