Western Australia Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 12th June)

Best Days: No great days in Margs. Perth and Mandurah are looking pretty good Monday and early Tuesday with strong though easing swells and light winds. 

Recap: Freshening N’ly winds swung W’ly early Thursday morning in Margs, but around lunchtime in Perth, with building short range NW swells providing low quality options for metro beach surfers in the morning before the wind wrecked conditions. Winds have been fresh to strong SW today with poor surf at most coasts. 

This weekend (June 13 - 14)

No change to the weekend forecast - we’ve got building swells on the way for both days, and it’ll become quite large by Sunday afternoon.

But, winds will be fresh to strong W’ly throughout Margaret River, lighter in the north but still onshore with generally average conditions in Mandurah and Perth. If we’re very lucky we may see pockets of variable winds and therefore lumpy wave faces (north from Bunbury, mainly Perth), but don’t get your hopes up for any major quality. 

As for size, the Margs region should lift from 4-6ft to 8ft+ on Saturday and then further to 10-12ft+ on Sunday. The swell sources are actually very impressive and there’ll be a lot of strength in the swell however you’ll have to tuck into a sheltered corner - though options will be somewhat limited thanks to the westerly wind direction (compared to SW or S’ly). 

Perth will build from 2-3ft (Saturday) to 3-4ft+ (Sunday) and it’ll be bigger again in Mandurah but I’m not expecting a great deal of quality on offer. However there will be OK options at most beaches. 

Next week (June 15 onwards)

Strong, less favourably aimed trailing fronts behind the primary system responsible for the weekend’s swells will maintain elevated wave heights through Monday and Tuesday, though the trend will be slowly down. Monday’s likely to remain somewhere in the 8-10ft+ range throughout Margaret River and 3ft+ in Perth, bigger in Mandurah, with size then easing slowly into Tuesday and Wednesday. 

Unfortunately, onshore winds will persist throughout this period throughout Margaret River so there won’t be many options, despite Monday seeing much less strength in the wind - the main issue here is that the direction will be back around to the W/NW, which reduces the number of sheltered options (for the size). 

Pre-frontal NW winds will then strengthen on Tuesday and Wednesday, reaching gale to storm force at times. 

Perth and Mandurah will however see very good conditions on Monday under a weak high pressure ridge, resulting in light variable winds. This should persist into Tuesday morning though the pre-frontal NW winds will probably kick in here by lunchtime. So make the most of this window of opportunity. 

The approaching front will be part of a cut-off mid-latitude low, which - whilst very strong - will be a singular system and will result in a shorter swell event (on Thursday) compared to the weekend's upcoming event. Strong onshore winds will accompany this swell that should again reach 10ft+ throughout Margaret River, albeit terribly onshore. Similar conditions are expected in Perth with 3-4ft+ waves.

Another round of strong groundswells from the next system are then scheduled to arrive later next weekend or early in the following week. 

More on that in Monday’s update. Have a great weekend!