Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 5th December)

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Best Days: Later Wednesday protected spots in the South West, Thursday both coasts (South West experienced surfers), Friday morning, Sunday morning South West

Recap

A poor weekend of surf with small waves and onshore winds in the South West, a touch cleaner around Perth yesterday morning.

Today similar conditions were seen across all coasts.

This week (Dec 3 - 9)

Forget about tomorrow, as the surf will remain small although conditions should be clean with a variable wind in the South West and E/SE offshore to the north.

Our eyes are trained on the vigorous polar low currently to our south-west (mentioned last week), with a fetch of severe-gale W/SW winds (a couple of storm-force barbs picked up by satellite) being generated in our south-western swell window.

This low is expected to track east-northeast towards us in a 'captured fetch' motion before pushing into the Bight while weakening, leaving a large powerful long-period SW groundswell for Thursday morning.

During Wednesday we'll see large levels of mid-period SW swell building as the low clips the south-west of the state, reaching 8ft on the sets by dark in the South West and 2ft+ in Perth.

Onshore SW winds should tend S/SE later in the day across the South West, so a check in protected locations for the late session is a goer.

Thursday is the pick though as the long-period SW groundswell peaks to 10-12ft in the South West across exposed breaks and 2-3ft in Perth with offshore E/SE winds, tending variable around midday ahead of mid-afternoon sea breezes.

The swell will ease steadily into the afternoon with smaller easing 3-5ft waves Friday morning across the South West, 1-1.5ft in Perth with morning offshores and afternoon sea breezes.

This weekend onwards (Dec 10 onwards)

Saturday is looking small but OK for swell magnets in the South West with an E/SE offshore.

A new inconsistent long-range SW groundswell is due Sunday, produced by a strong but distant polar low firing up south-east of South Africa. A patchy but persistent fetch of W'ly gales will be produced, and we should see the swell come in at 4-5ft in the South West, possibly with the odd bigger set at times into the afternoon, easing Monday.

Perth is only due to see inconsistent 1-1.5ft waves with the odd 2ft set.

At the moment we're looking at morning SE winds, but we'll review this Wednesday.