Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 3rd January)

Best Days: Mandurah tomorrow morning, the South West tomorrow, Sunday and Monday mornings, Tuesday morning, Thursday and Friday mornings in the South West

Recap

A large building swell across the state yesterday, cleanest in protected spots across the South West for the keen, much better in Mandurah and kicking to 3-4ft, fun in Perth as well.

Today the swell has started to ease with poor conditions across the South West, fun in Mandurah and Perth again with easing surf from 3ft+ and 2ft respectively.

This weekend and next week (Jan 4 - 10)

The surf will continue to ease over the weekend across the state, but conditions will be great in the South West with an offshore E/SE tending E/NE breeze before sea breezes kick in. Easing sets from 3-5ft are expected. Mandurah and Perth will be clean as well but easing from 1-2ft and 1ft+ respectively.

Sunday will become tiny in Perth and Mandurah with smaller 2-3ft leftovers in the South West under an E/NE tending N/NE wind ahead of sea breezes.

We then look to Tropical Cyclone Calvinia and the swell expected off it as it is absorbed into the westerly storm track.

Currently the fetch around Calvinia as it weakens is tight and not ideally aligned at all. Gale to severe-gale W/NW winds are being aimed through our western swell window as it tracks east-southeast. We'll see the remnants of Calvinia re-strengthen west-southwest of us, with a fetch of NW gales perpendicular to our swell window.

This isn't ideal and the bulk of the swell due across our coast will be from the earlier stages. The W/SW groundswell is due to build Monday and peak Tuesday morning in the 6ft+ range across the South West, 2ft to occasionally 3ft in Mandurah and 2ft in Perth.

As the swell builds Monday, conditions will be good in the morning with a S/SE-SE breeze, tending S/SW through the day, similar Tuesday with morning S/SE-SE breezes. Wednesday looks dicey with winds possibly more S'ly but we'll review this on Monday.

Some small to moderate sized reinforcing SW swell is due later week, generated by a couple of weak fronts moving up towards us through early next week.

Size wise we're not looking at anything above 3-5ft in the South West but winds should improve and hopefully swing more offshore. More on this Monday. Have a great weekend!