Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 19th January)

Best Days: Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, Friday morning, Saturday morning, Sunday morning

Recap

The South West offered the best waves over the weekend with small levels of easing swell and morning offshores (although a bit blowy Saturday morning, best late morning). Everywhere else was tiny or onshore.

Today onshore winds are in almost everywhere with a slight bump in swell, although Gero saw morning S/SE winds creating OK waves for keen surfers.

This week (Jan 19 – 23)

Tomorrow looks poor, with a front that was expected to produce a short-range W/SW swell now not expected to eventuate resulting in small waves continuing with onshore NW winds in the South West, variable winds around Perth and morning SE breezes up at Gero.

The rare W/NW groundswell due through Wednesday and Thursday is still on track with Severe Tropical Cyclone Bansi slowly moving east-southeast through the Indian Ocean while generating a tight fetch of severe-gale to storm-force NW winds through our western swell window.

Two good but inconsistent W/NW groundswells has been generated for the South West, coming in straighter W'ly across Perth and Gero, with an initial pulse for Wednesday being followed up by a secondary larger kick late in the day and early Thursday.

Size wise Margs and Gero should build to 3-5ft during the day with 2-3ft sets in Perth, while Thursday morning is due to come in at 4-6ft in the South West and Gero, with 3-4ft sets likely in Perth.

After Thursday morning's peak, a steady drop in size is due, but there'll also be a new SW groundswell arriving later in the day, peaking Friday morning (more on this in a second).

Now, winds are looking tricky with a variable tending S'ly breeze due in the South West, while Perth and Gero should see S/SE tending S/SW breezes Wednesday morning.

Thursday looks good for selected locations with a morning SE'ly around Perth and S/SE winds around Margs and Gero.

As touched on above a new SW swell that was last week due on Thursday has been pushed back in timing and also downsized with the polar front generating this swell being a touch weaker and nor projecting as far north-east as it was forecast to.

We're now looking at an inconsistent 4-6ft of swell for Friday morning across the South West with 1-2ft waves in Perth and 2-3ft sets up at Gero, but the easing W'ly swell should be more dominant in these locations from Mandurah north. Winds look to swing more SE across all locations during the morning before sea breezes kick in.

This weekend onwards (Jan 24 onwards)

We should see a series of good S/SW groundswell pulses through this weekend and early next week as a strengthening node (peak) of the Long Wave Trough pushes east and towards the south-east of the country. This will steer a series of strong cold fronts from our south-west up under the country, generating swells that will favour the Margaret River region more so than Perth and Gero.

The first swell is due to arrive later Friday and peak Saturday morning to 5-6ft in the South West, 1-2ft in Perth and 3-4ft up at Gero, with a secondary similar pulse Sunday.

Winds look to be from the S/SE to S/SW Saturday but Sunday looks better with better SE-E/SE offshores due during the morning. We'll review this again on Wednesday though.