South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 20th July)

Best Days: Today on the Mid, South Coast swell magnets all week and into the weekend, Mid Coast tomorrow and Saturday for the keen

Recap

A continuation of smal, clean waves with inconsistent levels of W/SW groundswell from the Indian Ocean but only to 2ft down South Saturday, with a touch more size yesterday morning but under the expected 3-4ft across Middleton.

The Mid Coast was a bumpy 1-2ft on Saturday and choppy yesterday with an approaching front.

Today we've got much more size on the coast from the front that pushed through yesterday with bumpy 3-4ft waves in protected spots for keen surfers down South, cleaner on the Mid Coast and to 2ft to occasionally 3ft.

This week and weekend (Jul 21 - 26)

We've got a slow old period ahead with the swell from the current front pushing through due to ease back slowly over the coming days as wind improve for the South Coast.

In the wake of the front this morning we've seen a fetch of strong SW winds projected into Victoria and Tasmania, generating some good mid-period S/SW swell for tomorrow morning, then easing.

The Mid Coast will see fading sets out of the W/SW with infrequent 1-2ft waves on the favourable parts of the tide, and easing 3ft+ waves across Middleton down South. There'll also be some stronger but lesser sized SW groundswell from the earlier stages of the front that moved through yesterday.

It looks like winds and conditions will improve through the morning down South with a pre-dawn S/SE breeze due to tend variable and even N during the morning and variable onshore into the afternoon. The Mid Coast will be clean ahead of weak sea breezes.

Come Wednesday we're looking at smaller easing 2ft+ waves off Middleton, tiny on the Mid Coast with a N/NE tending variable breeze across the South Coast, clean on the Mid again ahead of sea breezes.

For the rest of the week and weekend there's nothing significant besides some inconsistent and long-range background swell from the Indian Ocean.

These swells don't look to offer any major size but conditions will remain great for the swell magnets on the South Coast with a N/NE tending E/NE breeze on Thursday and N/NE tending N winds n Friday.

Size wise Middleton only looks to offer very inconsistent 2ft sets if that through Thursday and Friday morning, fading into the weekend.

The Mid Coast will remain tiny, but on Saturday a new W'ly swell is due from a slim mid-latitude front pushing under the WA coast Thursday. This will produce a fetch of strong W/SW winds, but as the front approaches us Friday it will weaken and turn into a trough. This is favourable for creating light winds on Saturday when the swell fills in with sets to 1-1.5ft likely. The swell will be too west and small to influence down South.

Longer term we may see some stronger and more significant fronts forming closer in our swell window into next week as a node of the Long Wave Trough moves in from the west, but we'll have a closer look at this Wednesday.