South Australian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday March 1st)

Best Days: Saturday and Sunday mornings down South

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Weak mix of S/SW and S/SE windswell over the coming days with morning E/SE winds
• New mid-period S/SW swell building Fri, peaking Sat with a light E/NE morning breeze, easing Sun with variable morning winds
• Flat on the Mid Coast

Recap

Pity about the local winds on the weekend. Saturday offered OK conditions for the keen with a bit of size leftover from Friday, but our strong new SW groundswell yesterday was spoilt by moderate to fresh and strengthening S/SW winds. The Mid Coast saw sets to 1-1.5ft+ yesterday (a bit better than expected) but remained wind affected.

Today the size has eased and conditions have remained average with a moderate onshore breeze down South, tiny to flat on the Mid Coast.

This week and weekend (Mar 2 - 7)

As touched on last week, following on from yesterday's change in winds back onshore, this whole week looks to be spoilt by persistent onshore winds.

The reason for this will be a very slow moving, stubborn high trying to slide in from the west over the coming days though it'll take its time as cold fronts develop and push up across Tassie.

This will being persistent, fresh S/SE winds, tending more E'ly each morning for periods but with weak levels of mid-period S/SW swell and S/SE windswell.

Tomorrow morning winds are due to tend E/SE but be moderate to fresh with a mix of easing mid-period S/SW swell and building local windswell.

Surf to 2-3ft is expected across Middleton, smaller Wednesday and to 2ft+ but with moderate, morning E/SE winds.

The swell looks to bottom out Thursday with similar morning winds, while a slight increase in mid-period S/SW swell is due to build Friday and peak Saturday.

A weak front skirting around the southern flank of the high looks to generate this mid-period pulse Friday afternoon, with an intensification south-west of Tassie due to generate an additional S'ly pulse Saturday

Size wise we're only looking at 2-3ft surf across Middleton but winds look to finally improve, swinging E/NE on Saturday morning, and then variable Sunday morning as the swell eases.

This isn't the greatest outlook but with the lighter winds and smallish, peaky swell this weekend, the mornings will be the pick of the period.

The Mid Coast throughout the week and weekend will fail to offer any size at all owing to the southerly direction of the incoming swells.

Moving into next week and it looks like we'll see a significant storm firing up through our south-western and southern swell windows this weekend, producing a sizey S/SW groundswell Tuesday, bit winds look to remain onshore. More on this in the coming updates.