Western Australia Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Thursday 1st June)

Best Days: Sat: strong swell with improving conditions. Sun: epic large waves everywhere, XL in Margs. Mon: large, easing clean surf. 

Recap: Easing surf all week has been plagued by onshore winds in Margaret River, but there have been small clean options across metro beaches. 

This week and weekend (Jun 2-4)

We’ve got some very big, clean waves on the way for the weekend. 

A powerful series of cold fronts have been forming west of Heard Island for much of the week, generating back-to-back groundswells, the first of which will begin to arrive on Friday morning. Unfortunately, freshening NW tending W/NW winds across the Margs coast will rule out any chance of a clean wave on Friday, but we should see morning offshores across the Perth and Mandurah coasts.

Surf size will be comparatively small to begin with (4-5ft Margs, 1-2ft Perth) but by the afternoon we should start to see some decent size with sets pushing 8ft in Margs late in the day, and 2-3ft up across the Perth metro beaches (though, winds will have swung onshore across this region by lunchtime). 

A second, stronger groundswell will fill in on Saturday, and winds will swing to the south as a weak front passes south of the state. The timing on the change isn’t quite clear but in any case there’ll probably be a lingering wobble through the lineup across all coasts. Margs should increase to 10ft+ with 3ft+ sets persisting across the Perth coast, with slightly bigger waves in Mandurah. Conditions should improve during the day as the wind becomes light and variable as the front clears to the east.

Sunday is where the real juice is expected to kick in, originating from the final low in this series, and the strongest - last night it showed a broad swathe of 50-60kt winds east of Heard Island. This is going to generate a very large, long period groundswell for the state. Additionally, the storm track is positioned slightly further north than usual which will result in a little more west in the swell direction that we often see. Perth will certainly benefit from this synoptic setup.

But that’s not the only good news - we’re also expecting fantastic conditions. A weak high pressure system will move across the region, swinging winds around to a light easterly breeze. It doesn’t get a lot better than this.

So, how much size? Across the Margs coast, most open reefs are looking at sets in the 12-15ft+ range however offshore bombies that can focus the swell will be considerably larger (expect easy 20ft+ surf at the usual haunts, likely bigger). 

This event will be very large and powerful and won’t be for inexperienced surfers whatsoever.

Perth should see excellent waves from this swell around 3-5ft, and the Mandurah stretch usually comes in a little larger so expect 4-6ft surf here. 

So in short, the weekend’s shaping up to be pretty amazing all round. Even if the size of the surf is out of your league, make sure you book in some time to check the spectacle from land. 

Next week (Jun 5 onwards)

Surf size will ease rapidly into Monday but still retain a healthy percentage of size, probably 8-10ft at first in Margs, easing to 6ft+ during the day. Conditions should be excellent with light offshore winds in all areas. Perth should manage early 3ft+ sets though down to 2-3ft during the day.  

A modest westerly stream trailing the source of the weekend’s swell will maintain a reasonable level of energy through Tuesday and early Wednesday (4-6ft Margs), but a series of new fronts and lows developing west of Heard Island over the weekend will renew very large surf for the middle to latter part of the week.

At this stage the models are suggesting a similar size as per Sunday’s swell, but I’m a little cautious as the storm track will be further west - i.e. further away - from the mainland, which means there’ll be a slightly greater size loss due to swell decay. 

However, these systems do look like they'll be oversized, and it’s quite likely that we’ll see a succession of XL swells starting around Wednesday afternoon (12-15ft or so) with another large long period swell due late in the week or through the following weekend. 

More on that in Saturday’s update.