Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 23rd December)

Best Days: Protected spots Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, protected spots next Monday

Recap

Fun, clean though smaller waves into Saturday, with Friday's swell dropping back, but coming in nice and to 3-4ft+ in the South West, 1-2ft in Mandurah. Perth was tiny and to 1-1.5ft, while everywhere was smaller and onshore yesterday.

Today the surf was still average and small, though a slight kick in new swell is expected this afternoon but with sea breezes.

This week and weekend (Dec 24 - 29)

We look ahead to our large W/SW groundswell due over the coming days and there's been no real change to the expected timing or size.

Tomorrow will see this afternoon's small swell easing under less than ideal S/SE tending S/SW winds, while into Wednesday, the new W/SW groundswell will build rapidly. This swell was generated yesterday and this morning by a frontal progression projecting a fetch of W/SW gales towards us.

This frontal system is currently weakening to our south-west, with the swell due to build quickly Christmas morning, reaching 6-8ft+ across the South West swell magnets into the afternoon, 2-3ft in Mandurah and 2ft to occasionally 3ft in Perth.

Conditions will be best in protected spots with a S/SE-SE morning breeze across most locations, giving into strong sea breezes.

Boxing Day (Thursday) morning looks a little dicey now, as a small trough off the coast brings N/NE tending N winds around Perth and Mandurah, E/SE tending E/NE South West, onshore from the W/SW-SW into the afternoon. Size wise, Margs should ease from 6ft+, 2ft to occasionally 3ft in Mandurah and 2ft in Perth.

A couple of weak trailing fronts will slow the easing trend into Friday, but an approaching mid-latitude frontal progression will unfortunately bring onshore W/SW tending W/NW winds, W'ly Saturday with a building mid-period swell.

The progression will generate a larger but onshore increase in W/SW swell on Sunday as a fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds are projected right up and into us later week and into Saturday. The South West is likely to reach 8ft on the sets, 3ft in Mandurah and 2-3ft in Perth but with strong W tending S/SW winds.

We may see winds swing to the S'th Monday as the swell eases ahead of a possible larger SW groundswell into the middle of next week. We'll have another look at this on Wednesday. Merry Christmas!