Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday February 8th)

Best Days: Keen surfers Thursday AM Margs and Mandurah, Saturday morning Margs and Mandurah, Sunday morning Margs, Tuesday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Weak, building mid-period S/SW swell Wed with SW tending S/SW winds, easing Thu with lighter S/SE-SE winds in the AM
• New mid-period SW swell filling in Sat with morning E/SE winds, easing Sun and clean again in the AM
• Mix of inconsistent SW groundswell and mid-period SW swell building Mon, easing Tue with S/SE winds
• Larger swells mid-late next week

Recap

A windy weekend of waves, though best in the South West Saturday with a new, building SW groundswell, smaller and easing Sunday. Mandurah was tiny Saturday morning but fun when the new swell filled in, easing from 1-2ft yesterday morning, tiny all weekend in Perth.

Today we've got strengthening onshore winds and a building windswell as a tropical low continues pushing south and off the coast.

This week and weekend (Feb 9 - 14)

Our current increase in localised swell is thanks to the tropical low pushing south, moving off our south coast and in its wake we'll see no decent size tomorrow and onshore winds as a cold front, come mid-latitude low pushes up from the south-west.

This front/low doesn't look great for swell production with a weak fetch of SW tending S/SW winds due to be aimed through our south-western and southern swell windows, kicking up a mid-period S/SW swell for Wednesday afternoon, fading Thursday.

Size wise it looks weaker than last Friday's predictions with building surf to 4-5ft in the South West, 1-2ft across Mandurah and Perth, easing from a similar size Thursday morning.

Winds will remain onshore out of the SW tending S/SW and then S'th on dark Wednesday, lighter S/SE-SE Thursday morning but with the weak S/SW swell, options will be limited and the surf not overly lined up or enticing.

Friday looks cleaner but the surf will be at a low point and weak.

Into the weekend a new, mid-period S/SW swell is on the cards, though without any major strength or size.

The source will be a relatively weak polar front generating a short-lived fetch of strong W/SW winds through our southern swell window Wednesday even and Thursday.

The swell looks a bit better then Wednesday/Thursday's with Margs peaking through the day to 4-5ft+, 1-2ft in Mandurah but tiny in Perth. A morning E/SE breeze should create clean conditions ahead of sea breezes, clean again Sunday but easing in size.

Longer term a very inconsistent, long-period SW groundswell is due early next week, generated by a strong polar low that's forming south-west of South Africa. This low will be in our far swell window, though a great fetch of storm-force W/SW winds will be generated south of South Africa, weakening as the low projects towards Heard Island while weakening.

The remnants of the low should produce weak W/SW winds along the polar shelf through the end of this week and weekend, generating some reinforcing mid-period SW swell.

The long-period forerunners are due later Sunday with the swell proper building later Monday, though the mid-period energy looks to arrive around the same time. The models are incorrectly combining these two swells and over-representing the raw surf size and period, so keep this in mind.

Building sets to 4-6ft are due into the afternoon across the South West, 1-2ft in Mandurah and tiny across Perth, easing from 5-6ft, 2ft and 1-1.5ft respectively Tuesday morning. Winds look less than ideal and S/SE through the mornings, deteriorating further through the week as a flurry of stronger cold fronts start firing up to our west and south-west under a strengthening node of the Long Wave Trough.

This spells a period of larger, close-range swells next week, but more on this Wednesday.