Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 1st May)

Best Days: Tuesday, Wednesday morning protected northern corners, late Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning

Recap

Pumping surf Saturday with Friday afternoon's increase in SW groundswell holding in the 6ft range across the South West with light morning offshore winds and 1-2ft surf around Perth.

An onshore change and easing swell created poor conditions yesterday, but this change was associated with a strong low, generating a large new SW groundswell for today.

The low moved off quickly to the east and with this offshores kicked in, providing clean pumping 6-8ft waves (captured below on the Margs surfcam) in the South West and 2ft waves further north. All day offshores have also kept the surf pumping into this afternoon.

This week and weekend (May 2 – May 7)

Today's groundswell will ease off overnight, but a long-range W/SW groundswell due to peak through the early morning will slow this easing trend and continue to provide solid sets tomorrow morning.

Margs should ease slowly from an inconsistent 5-6ft, with 2ft sets in Perth, smaller into Wednesday morning.

Conditions look great again tomorrow with a moderate to fresh E/NE offshore, tending NE and then variable into the afternoon. Wednesday will then only be good in northern corners with a fresh N/NE tending N/NW breeze as a strong frontal progression nears the state.

This polar frontal progression is a touch weaker than forecast last week which is a bit of a shame, but conditions are still looking excellent for the peak of the event.

Today a vigorous polar low will form in the Heard Island region, projecting a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds up towards us through our western swell window during the coming week.

This will then be closely followed by a small embedded low, generating additional severe-gale to storm-force winds through our south-western swell window.

We'll see some mid-period W/SW swell building through Thursday from the head of the frontal progression but with onshore W/NW winds.

The groundswell proper should start building Friday with a peak due Saturday morning.

The South West is due to build to 10ft through Friday afternoon, with 2-3ft sets in Perth but with W/SW winds, easing off later in the day. With this there may be some good options on dark in protected spots.

Saturday is the day to go surfing with large clean 10-12ft waves across the South West and 2-3ft in Perth with straight offshore E'ly winds, tending variable into the afternoon.

Easing surf is due into Saturday afternoon, smaller Sunday with morning E/NE offshores again.

Longer term another vigorous polar frontal progression is forecast to fire up in the Indian Ocean next week, projecting further north and generating a large W/SW groundswell for the middle of next week. This time winds look to be onshore though, so make the most of the coming excellent period of surf.