South Australian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 25th October)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small clean waves at Victor Tues/Wed (Wed the pick as there'll be some new energy)
• Local junky windswell Friday
• Average weekend of waves
• Better prospects next week

Recap

Saturday didn't offer much surf with onshore winds and small leftover swells, but Sunday delivered great waves on the Mid with a nice groundswell offering 2-3ft sets (see below), and conditions were clean with light winds. Victor remained average with unfavourable winds. Easing swells and offshore winds offered small peelers on the MId today whilst Victor saw only a brief window of early light E/NE winds as the swell also eased here.

U-turns looking quite fun on Sunday

This week (Oct 26 - 29)

We've got a week of two halves. 

Tuesday and Wednesday will remain clean down south under moderate NE winds, and initially small leftovers on Tuesday morning should boost a little late in the day with the arrival of a new groundswell, sourced from a distance source west of Heard Island last week. 

There won't be much in it but the Middleton stretch should offer 2ft+ waves through into Wednesday, and it'll be an ideal size for exposed beaches. Expect long waits for the sets.

This new swell won't do a great deal for the Mid, but conditions should be workable at a few spots (just keep an eye on the strength of the nor'easter), and the new lines may provide a few small sliders on the reefs for longboards and grommets.

An unstable troughy pattern across our West Coast this week will spin off a couple of cut-off lows, however their orientation looks to be more meridional (north/south) than zonal (west/east), and they'll be passing relatively quickly through our swell window(s). This essentially means: slim prospects for the Mid Coast, and not much more than some local windswell garbage for the South Coast. 

Raw model data current suggests there might be enough for a small Mid Coast stormy on Friday but I reckon it'll all come and go too quickly to generate anything meaningful. Let's take a closer look on Wednesday.

This weekend (Oct 30 - 31)

Whatever local swell we pick up Friday will disappear post-haste on Saturday. Winds will also ease right back but we'll need a synoptic offshore to iron out the bumps, and this isn't likely.

Additionally, our primary swell window looks to be largely devoid of activity this week, so I'm not expecting much in the way of quality of new groundswell this weekend either.

So right now, I'd be cautious in your expectations for any surfing on Saturday or Sunday.

Next week (Nov 1 onwards)

The outlook for next week is a little better. 

A developing frontal stream through the Southern Ocean later this week should set up a modest groundswell for (about) Monday arvo or Tuesday, offering 2-3ft sets along the South Coast. A small round of just-surfable waves are posisble on the Mid, but don't get your hopes up.

A stronger sequence of follow up systems behind this are looking good for a better round of groundswell later next week and into the weekend. 

But, that's a long time away - let's see how things are looking Wednesday.