South Australian forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday March 24th)

Best Days: Tiny Mid Coast options today, tomorrow and Wednesday, South Coast tomorrow morning and Friday morning for the keen

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small reinforcing W/SW swell tomorrow with E/NE tending S/SE winds (E/SE on the Mid in the AM)
• Moderate + sized mix of long-range SW groundswell and mid-period S/SW swell building Wed, peaking through the day, easing Thu
• Strengthening SE tending S/SE winds Wed
• Mod-fresh E/SE-E tending fresh S/SE winds Thu
• Small surf Fri with light E/NE tending S/SE winds
• Small Sat with possible variable tending strong S/SE winds along with a building windswell
• Stormy S/SE windswell Sun with strong S/SE winds

Recap

The weekend provided quality waves across both regions with Saturday morning coming in best across the Mid Coast as Friday’s building swell dropped back to a fun 1-2ft with slower but fun surf into yesterday.

The South Coast was also fun both Saturday and Sunday mornings, with yesterday seeing a strong pulse of SW groundswell building through the day, reaching 6ft across the magnets but with fresh sea breezes following early light winds.

Today the swell has held 1-2ft in the gulf with Middleton coming in lumpy and average thanks to only a small window of east wind before onshores kicked in.

This week and weekend (Mar 25 - 30)

The current swell will back off further into tomorrow but some reinforcing mid-period energy is likely to maintain infrequent 1-1.5ft sets across the Mid Coast and 2-3ft waves off Middleton.

Winds look decent for both coasts in the morning and E/NE across the South Coast with E/SE breezes on the Mid before gusty S/SE winds kick in, holding from the SE-S/SE and with strength on Wednesday as our new, long-range SW groundswell builds.

This swell was generated by a strong but distant polar low that formed south-east of South Africa last week.

Initially, in our far swell window, a fetch of severe-gale W’ly winds were produced (with a couple of embedded storm-force bursts), with the low tracking slightly east-northeast while weakening on the weekend.

There should also be a mix of more consistent but smaller mid-period S/SW energy in the mix Wednesday afternoon generated by a deepening frontal progression south-west of us today (left).

Building sets to 4-5ft are due off Middleton through the day with 1-1.5ft waves across the Mid Coast, easing Thursday from 3-4ft and 1ft+ respectively down South and inside the gulf.

Local winds will remain poor for the South Coast on Thursday as the swell eases with moderate-fresh E/SE breezes that may tend lighter E’ly for a period through the morning before reverting back to the S/SE into the afternoon.

Friday looks like a better chance for a surf as winds ease and tend light E/NE across the South Coast along with a further drop in energy from 2ft+ across Middleton (tiny inside the gulf)

Now, besides a small pulse of mid-period swell for Saturday, the outlook becomes windy and poor into Sunday and early next week as a deepening inland surface trough drifts south and deepens off the East Coast.

This will bring strengthening winds out of the south-eastern quadrant along with some localised, stormy S/SE windswell, especially into Sunday. The developments and movement of the inland trough/low into early next week are still up in the air, as are the local winds but they do look to tend lighter easterly early next week.

Regardless, a moderate sized S/SW groundswell is likely to be in the mix as well next Tuesday but we’ll have a closer look at this in the next update.