South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 29th January)

Best Days: Swell magnets tomorrow

Recap

Pumping waves across the South Coast yesterday with a solid clean SW groundswell to 4ft across Middleton, 1ft to occasionally 2ft on the Mid Coast swell magnets with favourable conditions most of the day.

The swell is now on the ease but was still coming in at 3ft across Middleton on the sets with nice clean conditions, back to a tiny 0.5-1ft on the Mid Coast.

This week and weekend (Jan 30 – Feb 2)

Make the most of the current swell on the South Coast as from here, tomorrow looks to be the only decent surf day, poor into the weekend and next week.

We'll see our current swell continuing to drop in size and period tomorrow, from 2ft off Middleton, much better at Waits and Parsons under offshore N/NE winds, tending variable ahead of late afternoon sea breezes. The Mid Coast will be tiny to flat.

Come Friday there isn't expected to be any real size left at all, tiny to flat off Middleton and 1ft to possibly 2ft at Waits and Parsons, fading through the day. Conditions will be clean with a fresh NW-N/NW offshore, holding all day.

Early Saturday is expected to be clean but flat with a dawn NW breeze, giving into a S/SW change mid-morning, tiny and windswelly on the Mid Coast.

Sunday looks poor with a small mid-period and windswelly S/SW swell to 2ft off Middleton but with moderate to fresh SW winds.

Next week onwards (Feb 3 onwards)

A couple of weak, but broad back to back fronts pushing up and towards us over the weekend are due to generate two pulse of mid-period SW swell for Monday and Tuesday.

We're not expecting too much size with sets to 3ft off Middleton, 1ft+ on the Mid Coast, but a strong high moving in behind the fronts will bring onshore S/SW tending S/SE winds Monday, SE tending S/SE winds Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll likely see onshore winds persist into the end of the week as a low forming off the southern NSW coast prevents the high moving on further east. No quality groundswell is due through this period but more on this Friday.