South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 5th February)

Best Days: Friday morning keen surfers South Coast, similar Saturday morning for the desperate down South, Mid Coast Tuesday

Recap

Great conditions with a tiny 1-1.5ft of swell yesterday morning on the Mid, tiny into the afternoon. The South Coast was a lumpy and 3ft or so for the desperate, smaller today and messier.

This week and weekend (Feb 6 - 7)

Looking at the end of the week and we should see a strong long-period S/SW groundswell filling in tomorrow, with the polar low linked to it now passing under Tassie while weakening.

This low has been generating a great fetch of gale to sometimes severe-gale W/SW winds through our southern swell window, producing a solid kick in size tomorrow across the South Coast, too south to impact the Mid.

The swell should be building from dawn and peaking through the day to 3-5ft across Middleton, tiny to flat on the Mid. Friday will then see the swell easing back steadily from 3ft early.

Looking at the local winds and unfortunately dawn SE breezes will create bumpy conditions tomorrow, easing and tending E/SE for a period mid-morning ahead of fresh S/SE sea breezes, more variable out of the S/SW-S/SE on Friday morning. This will be the window to surf but keep your expectations low as conditions will be far from perfect.

Saturday morning should see lumpy easing surf with a light morning E/SE breeze, but we'll be looking at a mix of S/SW and S/SE windswell dropping from the 2ft range along Middleton. Sunday should be a little cleaner with an E/NE breeze but the swell 1-2ft out of the S/SE.

Next week onwards (Feb 10 onwards)

Monday will become cleaner again but the surf bottoming out and tiny, while a new inconsistent W/SW groundswell is due to fill in on Tuesday.

This will be generated by a strong polar low firing up around the Heard Island region today, projecting a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds up towards Western Australia, in our far swell window.

The swell may be seen later Monday but a peak is expected Tuesday with inconsistent 1-2ft waves on the favourable parts of the tide across the Mid and 3ft from Day St to Middleton on the sets. Winds should be favourable for the Mid and S/SE, onshore down South but we'll review this Friday.