South Oz Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday November 4th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small waves on the Mid all week, though winds will be onshore at times (Tues should be clean tho')
• Tues looking good at Victor with light winds and easing surf
• Most of Wed/Thurs/Fri may be wind affected down south
• Great surf expected both coasts on Sat with a strong swell, easing Sun with SE winds picking up
• Sun onwards looks dicey everywhere for a while

Recap

Saturday produced great waves at Victor with offshore winds and easing surf from 2ft at Middleton. The Mid was very small. Sunday morning didn’t offer anything worthwhile with tiny waves at Victor and a local windswell on the Mid not materialising as expected. However, late afternoon saw new groundswell lines build to 1-2ft, with the swell building towards a peak this afternoon with solid 3ft sets across the reefs (see below), though early offshore winds are now around to a light sea breeze. Size has also built down south today to 3-4ft Middleton under light variable winds and sea breezes. 

Mid Coast looking tasty Monday morning

Plenty of waves on the Mid this afternoon

This week (Nov 5 - 8)

Easing swells are expected on Tuesday with generally light variable winds and sea breezes expected to maintain favourable conditions.

A slow drop in size across the Mid Coast should still see 2ft sets on offer though they’ll be much less consistent than what we’ve seen this afternoon. Down south, and rare 3-4ft sets early on will abate to 2-3ft at Middleton with smaller waves across the Chiton stretch.

On Wednesday, a front will cross the coast early morning, bringing a westerly change around dawn, building some local windswell throughout the day. There’ll also be a secondary groundswell generated by a polar low south of Heard Island over the weekend, though wave heights probably won’t top much more than about 2ft on the Mid, with onshore winds maintaining lumpy/bumpy conditions all day.

Size won’t increase much at Victor, probably holding 2-3ft at Middleton with W/SW winds developing through the day (early morning may see a brief period of NW winds for an hour or two).

Further fronts are expected to clip the coast on Thursday and Friday, which will maintain some form of W thru’ SW breeze both days - probably not overly strong, but certainly enough to take the sheen off things. 

As for surf size, these fronts will have pushed through our far W/SW swell window (at strength) and the upper Bight (not at quite as much strength) and therefore should maintain small waves in the gulf both days, probably around the 2ft mark along the Mid though we may see intermittent pulses pushing 2-3ft at times. It’ll be worth a surf though I’ll try to identify pockets of lighter winds in Wednesday’s notes.

Victor will see a slight boost in size during this time, probably to 3ft at Middleton Thursday but with bigger surf to 3-5ft by Friday afternoon as that will be in the lee of the strongest front. However, aside from an early Thursday pre-frontal NW flow, local winds will make for bumpy conditions at most spots. 

This weekend (Nov 9 - 10)

I like the look of Saturday, a lot.

Friday’s front will have cleared to the east overnight, allowing winds to become light and variable, ahead of developing SE breezes on Sunday as a high pressure system sets up camp in the Bight.

The primary groundswell associated with Friday’s change is expected to nose into the coast overnight, peaking Saturday with 4-5ft sets across the MIddleton stretch (bigger at the swell magnets). 

The Mid Coast is also looking very good with size expected to offer good 2-3ft sets across the reefs. 

Slowly easing size is expected on Sunday as winds freshen from the SE so it’ll probably be a worthwhile day for the Mid, but poor along the South Coast as the onshore picks up strength.

Let’s fine tune the specifics on Wednesday.

Next week (Nov 11 onwards)

A reinforcing S/SW swell from a polar low well to the south of the state on Saturday should produce some decent groundswell lines for the South Coast on Monday; however I fear that the local SE flow will spoil conditions. We’ll have more on that over the coming days (this swell direction will be too south for the Mid Coast).

Otherwise, the rest of next week and the following weekend looks like it could be the start of an extended pattern of smaller surf as the storm track weakens and contracts to the south. Additionally, local winds associated with these patterns (high pressure in the Bight) is usually from the south-east, which isn’t great for Victor. 

This means we could be looking at a poor run of surf from Sunday onwards, so make the most of whatever you can until then.

See you Wednesday!