Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 24th July)

Best Days: Selected spots tomorrow morning, Sunday, selected spots dawn Perth and Mandurah, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings Perth and Mandurah

Recap

Poor conditions across all locations yesterday with a strong mid-latitude front pushing into us, kicking up a chunky windswell. Today conditions have cleaned up rapidly with a high moving in quickly behind the front, with a drop in swell but clean 6ft surf across the South West, 2-3ft further north.

This week and weekend (Jul 25 - 31)

With the first window of clean conditions being seen today, we then look to the weekend were conditions will deteriorate again tomorrow before cleaning up Sunday.

We've got an initial long-period pulse of W/SW groundswell due tomorrow, with our larger swell for Sunday still on track.

Size wise tomorrow's swell should see an increase in size to an inconsistent 6-8ft+ across the South West, holding 2-3ft in Mandurah and 2ft across Perth. Winds will be an issue but if keen try the early with a dawn and fresh NE'ly due to swing N/NE and strengthen quickly before then shifting N/NW into the afternoon.

A SW change is due overnight and a high will move in quickly, swinging winds back around to the E/SE across all locations, swinging E/NE into the afternoon and then variable from the N'th.

The larger groundswell from the impressive and broad fetch of gale to severe-gale winds in the south-west Indian Ocean should generate a larger W/SW groundswell pulse that's due to build Sunday and reach 10ft to occasionally 12ft across the South West into the afternoon, 3-4ft in Mandurah and 3ft in Perth.

There'll also be some additional mid-period W/SW-SW energy from the front moving through Saturday though this is still forecast to dip away quickly to the south-east, resulting in those cleaner conditions Sunday.

The swell should start to ease Monday from a similar if not slightly smaller size and conditions will be slightly worse than tomorrow. The South West will see strong N'ly winds at dawn (N/NE early around Mandurah and Perth), swinging strong N/NW-NW into the afternoon with an approaching cold front.

As touched on last update, this front will be the first of a progression moving up and into us under the influence of the strong node of the Long Wave Trough pushing in from the west.

With this we'll see building levels of windswell and large groundswell, though there's window of cleaner conditions on the cards for Wednesday around Perth and Mandurah.

Looking at the expected pulses and a strong mid-latitude front pushing up and north of Heard Island today and tomorrow should generate a new W/SW groundswell for Tuesday afternoon and more so Wednesday, with this added to as the front pushes in Monday and Tuesday, generating an additional fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds through our swell window.

On top of all this an even stronger mid-latitude system will move through Tuesday, boosting the expected sized further for Wednesday.

We're looking at surf to 10-12ft across the South West Wednesday, 3-4ft in Mandurah and 3ft across Perth with Tuesday's strong W/SW winds easing and becoming moderate out of the W/NW. Perth and Mandurah should see light E/NE tending variable N winds.

Thursday should play out similar but with a drop in size from Wednesday.

Later in the week a new large, long-period SW groundswell is due, produced by a storm-force fetch of W/NW to W/SW winds pushing through on the back of the activity early week.

The swell should be seen to build later Thursday and peaking Friday to 12ft+ across the South West, 4ft in Mandurah and 3ft across Perth and a trough looks to bring a S/SE change through the morning (possibly variable early around Perth and Mandurah).

Cleaner conditions could be seen next Saturday as the swell eases, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!