Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 13th August)

Best Days: Perth and Mandurah Wednesday and Thursday mornings, Saturday morning swell magnets

Recap

Fun waves across all locations on Saturday with winds finally swinging offshore across Margs with 5-6ft of swell, clean and 2-3ft around Perth and Mandurah.

Sunday was much smaller and OK early before onshore winds kicked in, bumpy with a persistent N'ly and small waves, similar today along with a building NW windswell.

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This week and weekend (Aug 14 - 19)

Currently a mid-latitude low is forming south-west of us, with a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW-SW winds developing late in our swell window.

This should produce a new SW swell for tomorrow, peaking into the afternoon, mixed in with some longer-range W/SW groundswell from a strong mid-latitude low that developed south-east of South Africa and Madagascar last week.

The models are over-forecasting the size due tomorrow and incorrectly combining each swell, but we're due to see fresh to strong W/SW winds with building sets to the 8ft range across the South West, 3ft in Mandurah and 2-3ft around Perth.

The swell will ease through Wednesday from a similar if not slightly smaller size respectively across all coasts but with persistent onshore winds across the South West out of the W/SW.

Perth and Mandurah are due to see early E/SE offshores and will be the pick of the region.

Similar winds are due into Thursday as the swell continues to fade with the next increase in size due on Friday.

This swell won't be especially strong, generated by a small and unconsolidated polar front projecting from the Heard Island region, east-southeast over the coming days.

A small spike up to 5-6ft is expected into Friday afternoon across the South West, only a small 2ft in Mandurah and 1ft to maybe 2ft across Perth with onshore S/SW winds likely across all locations as the front clips the state.

We'll see winds swing back offshore out of the E/NE tending NE and then N/NE Saturday morning as the swell eases, similar Sunday but smaller.

Longer term there's nothing too major on the cards until mid-next week when we see some vigorous mid-latitude storms firing up south-east of Madagascar later this week and weekend, generating some large long-period W/SW groundswell. This looks to arrive with onshore winds at this early stage but have a check back here Wednesday for more on this.