South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 15th January)

Best Days: No good days - desperate surfers Sat AM South Coast

Recap

Not too bad early yesterday on the South Coast with a light onshore breeze and small 2ft sets off Middleton, but the afternoon was poor with stronger onshore winds. The Mid Coast was tiny to flat.

Today a good new SW groundswell has filled in with 3-4ft waves off Middleton, spoilt by strong onshore winds, cleaner on the Mid but slow and full on the high tide and to 1-1.5ft mostly.

Tiny, full lines on the Mid this morning

Winds will strengthen out of the S/SW through the day creating average conditions on the Mid, tending S'ly on dark.

This week and weekend (Jan 16 – 19)

As touched on in Monday's outlook, the coming period will be plagued by poor and fresh to strong onshore winds across the South Coast as a strong high moves in from the west today, squeezed by a couple of inland surface troughs across Victoria.

This will direct persistent and poor onshore winds across the South Coast with no real decent swell for the Mid Coast.

Today's good SW groundswell is expected to ease tomorrow, while a mid-period reinforcing SW swell Friday should keep 3ft sets hitting Middleton. Strengthening S/SE winds will kick up an additional S/SE windswell and create terrible conditions tomorrow, similar Friday.

Winds should ease back to moderate on Saturday morning out of the S/SE, increasing from the S'th into the afternoon but with a weak mix of swells to 2-3ft or so.

Stronger onshore winds are likely to kick back in on Sunday kicking up the windswell in size again, with no relief for Monday. Come Tuesday we may see winds swing more to the W/SW but with no decent quality swell.

Coming back to the Mid Coast and tomorrow looks tiny and to 1ft or so max on the sets, but a slight kick in mid-period swell is likely Friday, with 1-1.5ft sets on the favourable parts of the tide.

Longer term, a change in the synoptic setup is due mid-late next week as a strong mid-latitude low moves in from the west, but more on these developments in Friday's update.