Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 26th September)

Best Days: Tomorrow protected spots, Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning swell magnets in the South West, hopefully Tuesday morning

Recap

A strong spike in W'ly groundswell across the coast yesterday, with the buoys jumping significantly when it arrived.

Conditions were average across the South West but good around Perth and Mandurah early with light offshore breezes.

The swell has dropped back this morning with less than ideal though better conditions in the South West, clean and still fun and to 2-3ft across Mandurah, 2ft in Perth.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This week and weekend (Sep 27 - 30)

With the first of our long-period W/SW groundswells on the way out, we now look ahead to the less consistent but stronger long-period W/SW groundswell due tomorrow and Friday.

This swell is currently heading towards us, generated by a vigorous and prolonged frontal progression that formed south-east of South Africa later last week.

The long-period forerunners are due to arrive overnight this evening, with the groundswell building slowly through tomorrow and reaching a very inconsistent 8ft on the sets across the exposed reefs in the South West by mid-late afternoon, with Mandurah building to 3ft, and Perth 2ft, with the possible bigger 3fter.

A peak is then due overnight, with a drop through Friday from a similar if not slightly smaller size, easing further Saturday.

Winds will improve as touched on in Monday's notes with a S/SE-SE breeze across the South West tomorrow morning (E/SE Mandurah and Perth), freshening from the S/SE into the afternoon, with Friday looking excellent with a persistent and straight, fresh E-E/SE offshore.

Saturday will remain offshore with stronger E-E/NE winds, while our new pulses of SW groundswell for Sunday and Monday/Tuesday are still on track.

These swells will be generated by less than favourably aligned but persistent and back to back fetches of pre-frontal W/NW gales over the coming days.

The first of these fetches won't be favourable at all, with small levels of SW groundswell spreading out radially into us on Sunday and coming in at 3-5ft or so across Margs, 1-1.5ft Mandurah and Perth.

Winds look to make an adjustment and tend SE into Sunday morning (NE across Perth and Mandurah as an inland surface trough develops into a small low and pushes offshore across the central West). The afternoon will be bumpy and choppy with fresher S'ly breezes.

A slight drop in size is expected Monday morning ahead of the better SW groundswell arriving into the afternoon. This will be generated by a better aligned and more northerly positioned fetch, with a kick to 5-6ft across the South West due (2ft Mandurah and 1-2ft Perth), easing from a similar size Tuesday morning.

Winds look to persist from the S/SE on Monday with possibly better offshore winds Tuesday, but we'll have to check this again Friday.

Longer term a very significant but poorly structured polar low looks to generate a moderate to large sized S/SW groundswell for Thursday though check back here Friday for more details on this.