Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 22nd July)

Best Days: Perth and Mandurah tomorrow and early Wednesday, all locations every day from Thursday

Recap

Poor and large surf developing across most locations over the weekend, while today an XL SW groundswell is on the build, but with poor conditions across the South West, lumpy and better to the north with lighter S'ly winds.

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This week and weekend (Jul 23 – 28)

Today's XL SW groundswell is due to peak this afternoon around the 15-18ft range in the South West, 4-5ft around Mandurah and 4ft on the sets in Perth, easing back steadily in size tomorrow, but then slowed into the end of the week by reinforcing SW energy.

The reinforcing swells will be generated by a stream of fronts pushing in behind the significant frontal progression linked to today's swell, just passing by the south-west of the state.

Winds will remain onshore for the South West tomorrow, out of the SW, but they might tend lighter S'ly for a short period through the morning if we're lucky. Perth and Mandurah look to see early E/NE-NE winds, quickly swinging N'ly and then variable into the afternoon.

Size wise, Margs looks to ease back from the 10-12ft range, 4ft in Mandurah and 3ft+ in Perth, smaller again Wednesday and to 6-8ft, 3ft and 2ft+ respectively.

Onshore W/NW winds are still expected across the South West on Wednesday, with OK though not great early N/NE winds further north, shifting NW and then W through the day.

Come Thursday a new pulse of SW groundswell is expected, generated by one of the fronts streaming past our swell window over the coming days. This should keep the South West around 6-8ft, 3ft in Mandurah and 2ft+ in Perth and winds will finally start to improve across the South West.

A morning S/SE to possibly SE breeze is expected Thursday morning, similar to the north and likely holding all day, slightly better Friday morning and E/SE, though E/NE in Perth and Mandurah as the swell from Thursday eases.

The weekend will be clean each morning but the swell smaller and best in the South West with a new long-period SW groundswell for Sunday.

This will be generated by a small and distant polar low forming south of South Africa today, generating a fetch of severe-gale to likely storm-force W'ly winds while tracking east towards Heard Island over the coming days.

While weakening in our medium-range swell window, we should still see a good 6-8ft long-period groundswell for the South West on Sunday, peaking through the day, 2ft+ in Mandurah and a small 1-2ft in Perth.

Following this there's nothing significant on the cards until late next week when we may see a new long-period W/SW groundswell filling in. More on this Wednesday though.