Large swells with more options opening up late week

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 10th September)

Best Days: Perth and Mandurah tomorrow morning and possibly Wednesday morning, all locations Friday and Saturday morning

Recap

Terrible conditions across the South West all weekend, large into yesterday, while Perth and Mandurah offered a good window of cleaner conditions with early NE-N/NE winds and the new swell kicking to head-high on the sets.

This morning all locations are poor again with plenty of swell but onshore winds as another strong front pushes in from the south-west.

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This week and weekend (Sep 11 - 16)

The vigorous mid-latitude front that's currently approaching us has generated a fetch of gales through our swell window from Saturday and will clip us this evening, continuing east through the Bight while strengthening tomorrow.

An oversized SW groundswell should fill in tomorrow though with onshore winds in the wake of the swell generating storm from the SW, tending more W/SW through the day.

Perth and Mandurah should see early S/SE-SE winds before the onshore kicks in.

Size wise Margs looks to build to the 10-12ft range, 4ft in Mandurah and 3ft in Perth, easing through Wednesday as onshore winds kick back in across all locations as another front approaches from the west. There's a chance for more variable winds across Perth and Mandurah so keep an eye on the local winds observations.

This front will be the first in a progression of strong polar fronts, this initial one generating a zonal fetch of elongated W'ly gales and a new SW groundswell for Thursday.

The South West should build to 8ft on the sets, 3ft+ in Mandurah and 2-3ft in Perth with what looks to be onshore winds across all locations from the SW.

We'll see a secondary fetch of more polar gale to severe-gale W/SW winds moving in on the back of the active sea state, generating a similar sized though slightly more southerly directed swell for Friday morning.

Of greater importance is a stronger polar front piggy-backing on top of the active sea state projecting a fetch of severe-gale SW winds up and into us.

An even larger oversized S/SW groundswell will be generated, filling in Friday and peaking later in the day.

Winds look to improve on Friday morning as the front clears to the east resulting in S/SE winds across the South West during the morning, SE further north along with the building swell.

The South West should reach 10ft+ later in the day with possibly no real increase in size likely across Mandurah or Perth before dark.

Saturday looks excellent at this stage with easing 8-10ft sets in the South West, 3ft in Mandurah and 2-3ft in Perth with an E/NE offshore, tending N'th during the day.

Sunday looks to be a lay day with small leftover swell onshore winds as another front pushes into us.

This storm could bring an XL groundswell into early next week, with plenty more to follow, but more on this Wednesday.