South Australian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday March 22nd)

Best Days: Mid Coast tomorrow ahead of sea breezes, Mid Coast late Thursday, both coasts Friday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Inconsistent W/SW groundswell tomorrow with E/SE tending SW winds on the Mid, light S, increasing down South
• Fun, mid-period W/SW swell building Thu PM with easing SW winds late, easing Fri with light, local offshore winds
• Nothing major until late next week

Recap

Tiny waves all weekend on the Mid Coast to 1-1.5ft, best on the favourable parts of the tide, with similar conditions continuing this morning.

The South Coast was fun each morning, cleanest Sunday with light offshore winds ahead of sea breezes. Today is clean again but tiny.

This week and weekend (Mar 23 - 28)

With the tiny run of waves across the Mid Coast seen since Friday afternoon, we've got a slightly stronger, but inconsistent pulse of swell due tomorrow. This swell was generated by a healthy though distant mid-latitude frontal progression firing up north of the Heard Island region towards Western Australia late last week.

Inconsistent 1-2ft sets are due tomorrow on the favourable parts of the tide across the Mid Coast, with small 2ft waves down South. A light E/SE offshore will favour the Mid Coast ahead of strong sea breezes, while the South Coast looks dicey with dawn light S/SW winds, increasing through the morning.

Wednesday looks smaller and average with fresh SW winds on the Mid, W/SW tending SW on the South Coast along with no change to the swell.

We've now got a fun new swell source for both coasts to end off the week, linked to a mid-latitude low that's currently forming south of Western Australia.

This low will be relatively weak and tight, but a fetch of strong to near gale-force W/SW winds will be projected through our west-southwestern swell window tomorrow, before it weakens while pushing east.

The swell should build Thursday afternoon across the Mid Coast, kicing to 2ft, then easing from 1-2ft on Friday. The South Coast should see a late kick Thursday 2ft+, easing Friday from 2ft to possibly 3ft, smaller again Saturday.

Winds will remain onshore Thursday as the mid-latitude low pushes in, easing later in the day as the swell builds, with variable tending locally offshore winds due Friday. Another weak, approaching front may keep conditions clean all day across both coasts, but we'll have a closer look at this Wednesday.

Looking at the weekend outlook and there's nothing major on the cards with weak background W/SW-SW swells with no size or power along with W/NW tending W/SW winds Saturday as a front pushes through, SW Sunday.

Longer term there's no change to the outlook until late next week when a node of the Long Wave Trough strengthens south-west of Western Australia before pushing slowly east. This will bring the frontal systems and some new swell energy. More on this Wednesday and Friday though.