Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 26th April)

Best Days: Thursday morning across the South West, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, Monday morning in the South West, Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning in the South West

Recap

Good clean conditions across all locations yesterday morning, coming in at 3-4ft around Margs, tiny to the north, but into the late morning a strong pulse of new SW swell kicked in, reaching 4-6ft across the South West with favourable winds before weak sea breezes developed.

Today the surf was easing from 4-5ft across the South West with a light offshore wind, while Perth saw 1-2ft waves, tiny around Mandurah.

This week and weekend (Mar 27 – 30)

We'll see the surf continuing to ease into the end of the week, slowed slightly by a reinforcing SW swell tomorrow. 3-4ft sets are due across the South West, tiny to the north. Winds should be nice and offshore, variable into the early/mid afternoon ahead of late sea beeezes.

Friday should be clean again with a E/SE offshore ahead of afternoon sea breezes. Into the afternoon a new long-period SW groundswell is expected, generated the yesterday and into today by a vigorous low in the southern Indian Ocean.

The low wasn't ideally aimed towards us, but satellite observations have picked up a great fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/NW winds through our south-western swell window.

We should see this swell building strongly Friday afternoon, reaching 5-6ft by late afternoon and hopefully 1-2ft in Perth by dark.

Saturday morning should see similar sized sets to 5-6ft across the South West and 1-2ft in Perth with offshore E/SE winds, variable into the mid-afternoon.

Sunday will see the swell easing away (mixed with a reinforcing W/SW swell from a short-lived front north of Heard Island), clean with a morning SE'ly ahead of a SW change.

Next week onwards (May 1 onwards)

We're due to see an inconsistent, long-range, long-period W/SW groundswell building through Monday ahead of a peak Tuesday morning, generated in our far swell window, south-east of South Africa.

An elongated and vigorous polar front has generated a good fetch of severe-gale to storm-force SW winds, aimed towards Indonesia. This system is now pushing more east towards us, along with the fetch tending more W/SW.

The swell from this front is due to arrive Monday, building later in the day to 4-5ft+ across the South West ahead of a peak Tuesday morning in the 5-6ft range. Perth should see 1-2ft sets Tuesday morning but there'll be long waits.

We're looking at great offshore E'ly winds early next week with weak sea breezes, with some larger swell on the cards for late week. More on this Friday though.