South Australian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday December 27th)

Best Days: Keen surfers this morning and tomorrow morning, Monday morning South Coast, possibly Tuesday morning South Coast

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate sized S/SW swell for Wed PM, easing slowly Thu and smaller Fri
• Light E/SE winds Thu AM, strong S/SE into the PM
• Strong S/SE-SE winds Fri
• Small-moderate sized S/SW swell Sat with moderate to fresh S/SW winds
• Moderate sized + S/SW swell Sun (peaking during the day) with moderate E/SE-SE tending strong S/SE winds
• Easing S/SW swell Mon with varaible E/NE-NE tending S/SE winds
• Smaller Tue with possible variable S winds, strengthening

Recap

Yesterday was poor and stormy across the South Coast thanks to strong onshore winds, while a tiny 1ft of windswell kicked up across the Mid Coast. This morning conditions were poor early but improved as onshore winds eased and tended more variable. This is providing OK conditions for the keen with 3-4ft of south swell. The Mid Coast is flat.

Workable surf this morning

This week and weekend (Dec 28 - 31)

We’re now looking at a similar period of lighter E/SE winds tomorrow morning with lumpy conditions and a new mid-period S/SW swell across the South Coast.

The swell is due to arrive this afternoon, generated by a good polar front and low that fired up earlier in the week. Good 3ft sets should continue across Middleton with the odd possible bigger one, easing into Friday. The Mid Coast will remain tiny to flat.

Onshore SE winds will strengthen through the day tomorrow creating deteriorating conditions that will persist into Friday with strong SE-S/SE winds.

Winds are due to shift back to the S/SW on Saturday as a strong frontal progression, linked to a good kick in S/SW swell Sunday pushes through.

This polar frontal progression looks to generate a great fetch of strong to near gale-force W/SW winds, projecting from the south-southwest of Western Australia, up towards Tasmania over the coming days.

This should generate a moderate sized + mid-period S/SW swell for Sunday, building through the day to a peak into the afternoon.

Middleton should see 4-5ft+ surf with waves locally in Victor while the Mid Coast only looks to hit 1ft max.

Winds are due to shift E/SE-SE on Sunday morning but be moderate in strength, creating average conditions down South.

Monday now looks cleaner as the swell eases with a variable offshore E/NE-NE breeze and good sized, easing 4ft surf down South, tiny on the Mid Coast.

Tuesday is a little tricky with a trough due to bring another S/SW change but we may see a period of variable winds early. We’ll review this Friday.

Looking at the rest of the week and another run of poor S/SE winds is expected with smaller swell pulses. We’ll review this on Friday.