Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 8th May)

Best Days: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday morning in the South West

Recap

Pumping waves Saturday with a large clean easing swell from the 10ft range in the South West, 3-4ft around Mandurah and 2ft to occasionally 3ft on the Perth metro beaches.

Winds remained favourable all day with variable breezes into the afternoon.

Sunday was still solid in the South West with clean 6ft+ surf, easing through the day and dropping 2-3ft waves around Mandurah, 2ft in Perth.

Today the swell was much smaller and with alight onshore wind in the South West, cleaner but tiny to the north.

This week and weekend (May 9 – 14)

With the weekend's large clean swell but a distant memory this morning, we look to the next significant swell event, that due tomorrow and Wednesday.

Since late last week a very intense and broad polar storm has been moving through the Southern and Indian Oceans, generating a very large and powerful W/SW groundswell.

Satellite observations confirm an expansive and persistent fetch of severe-gale to storm-force winds projected through our western swell window, and this system is currently weakening while approaching us from the west-southwest.

We'll see the remnants of the progression moving across us tomorrow, bringing poor onshore W/SW winds, easing through the day as a mix of mid-period W/SW and larger W/SW groundswell fill in.

We're looking at a touch less size than forecast Friday with Margs due to build to 10-12ft later tomorrow, easing from a similar size Wednesday morning. Perth should increase to 3ft later tomorrow with 3-4ft sets around Mandurah, easing from a similar size Wednesday morning.

Winds are looking poor most of tomorrow, only easing later, but Wednesday should be good in semi-protected locations with a light to moderate SE'ly ahead of sea breezes in Perth and S/SE winds in the South West.

Thursday looks excellent with straighter offshore E/SE to E'ly winds, tending variable into the afternoon and easing 6ft+ sets in the South West, 2ft to the north.

Friday will be smaller and an early E/NE breeze will favour magnets ahead of a weak onshore change.

Moving into the weekend, Saturday will remain small but clean through the morning, while we've got a very large and stormy W/SW swell on the cards for later Sunday/Monday.

This will be due to a deep and powerful mid-latitude low forming directly off our South West coast, stalling and aiming a fetch of severe-gale to near storm-force W/SW winds into the region.

Strong to gale-force onshore winds will accompany the swell as it peaks Monday, with improving conditions Tuesday as the low moves off to the east. More on this Wednesday though.