South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday May 10th)

Best Days: Tomorrow from mid-late morning, Monday afternoon and Tuesday on the Mid Coast, Tuesday morning down South, Thursday for the keen inside the gulf, through the morning down South

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Late pulse of inconsistent mod sized, S/SW groundswell today, peaking early tomorrow AM, easing steadily, small to tiny Sun
• Light-mod SE winds at dawn tomorrow, tending variable then light S into the PM
• N/NW tending SE winds Sun
• Acute W'ly swell arriving Mon PM with E/NE winds tending weak sea breezy in the gulf, NW tending SW down South
• Easing swell in the gulf Tue with local offshore winds ahead of weak sea breezes
• Swell peaking down South Tue AM
• Moderate sized SW groundswell Thu with variable tending S/SE winds

Recap

Variable winds and fun levels of S’ly groundswell across the South Coast to an inconsistent but good 3ft yesterday morning, 2-3ft this morning. The Mid has been tiny with it becoming near flat today.

This weekend and next week (Apr 11 - 17)

Our second pulse of strong S/SW groundswell for this afternoon and tomorrow morning is on track, but while the polar frontal system linked to it was slightly stronger than the storm generating our mid-week swell, it was also faster moving.

This makes for a tricky forecast, but with satellite imagery showing a great fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds in our southern swell window, we should see another good pulse of S/SW groundswell tomorrow morning, though inconsistent and easing steadily through the day.

Infrequent 3ft to possibly 4ft sets are due across Middleton early tomorrow, easing steadily and then down from 1ft to maybe 2ft on Sunday morning.

The Mid will be tiny to flat.

Winds are a little funky for tomorrow, with a trough due to bring light-moderate SE winds at dawn, turning variable during the morning and then light S through the afternoon. It’s not ideal but should still be OK.

Sunday looks cleaner but with that small to tiny, fading swell.

The surf will bottom out into Monday morning across the South Coast, while the Mid Coast should see a small pulse of mid-period W'ly swell into the afternoon.

The source is a small, relatively weak mid-latitude low forming off Western Australia today, slipping south-east into our swell window overnight.

A fetch of strong W-W/SW winds should generate a fun kick in size, reaching 2ft on the sets into the afternoon, easing from a similar size Tuesday morning.

The South Coast looks minimal in size, maybe reaching 2ft+ later Monday but more so into Tuesday.

Winds at this stage look favourable with morning offshores and weak sea breezes in the gulf on Monday, similar Tuesday.

Following this mid-latitude low, weak unconsolidated frontal activity will strengthen south of the Bight on Tuesday, with a good fetch of strong to gale-force W/NW winds due to generate a moderate sized, mid-period S/SW swell for Thursday.

The swell should build to 3ft to possibly 4ft through the afternoon Thursday down South, with 1-1.5ft sets across the Mid Coast with what looks to be variable tending S/SE winds as a trough slides in.

A secondary mid-latitude system is forecast to move in late week and bring some bigger swell into next weekend but a following high looks to bring S’ly winds. More on this Monday. Have a great weekend!