Western Australian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Mon May 16th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Cut-off low brings NE’ly winds Mon/Tues and new swell W Tues
• Clean W swell leftovers Wed AM 
• SW swell building Fri, peaking Sat with good winds, easing Sun with good winds
• Large W swell Mon arriving with cold front bringing strong onshores
• Indian Ocean storm track remains very active

Recap 

Plenty of surf over the weekend with solid surf reinforced by a large pulse Sun with surf over 8f in the SW, grading smaller in Mandurah and Perth with SW winds. An approaching cut-off low stalled, bringing an E to ENE’ly flow through today and great surf in the 5-6ft range in the SW corner, smaller 2-3ft in Mandurah and 2ft in Perth. An active Indian Ocean storm track continues.

This week and next week (May 16 - 27)

The cut-off low weakened as it aimed up at WA, reducing surf to the 3-4ft range which will see surf from a more W’ly angle through Tues and NE winds for the most part, which persist Wed as the low dissipates and troughs out off the SW coast. Expect surf to build from 3-4ft into the 3-5ft range through Tues, smaller 3ft in Mandurah and 2-3ft in Perth. Clean conditions persist into Wed with leftover 4ft surf in the SW, smaller in Mandurah and Perth. Winds will likely tend NW as the trough passes over the SW corner.

That leads to a couple of small, weak days Thurs and Fri with a weak W’ly flow across the SW land division and coastal areas. Not much to recommend on those days. 

Weekend looks pretty good, with moderate storm activity in the Central Indian Ocean sending another moderate W/SW swell towards WA. This will see surf build later Fri up into the 4-6ft range across the SW, smaller in Mandurah/Perth, building further into the 6ft+  range Sat with good looking E to E/NE winds. 

Surf eases back down Sun from those heights with NE winds through the morning, tending NW in the a’noon as a front extending up towards Gascoyne latitudes approaches the state.

Into next week and the Indian Ocean storm track looks extremely active with a storm force system generating seas in excess of 30ft riding at a high latitude (40S) from Thurs in the Central Indian Ocean. This will be an amazing Indo storm(see below) but WA will also receive a large swell but with bad winds. 

Better aimed at Indo but still generating large swell for WA

The frontal remnants of the low which we just mentioned slam the state Mon, as the swell hits and this will be a solid W swell in the 10-12ft range. Winds will be fresh W/NW to W as the front hits.

Surf then eases through Tues with a lingering W’ly flow.

Into the medium term and the storms are backed up across the Indian Ocean. Another storm force system tracking near Heard Island Sun/Mon and a powerful system below Africa are set to send powerful groundswells towards WA.  SW groundswell from the first system is likely by later next week while long range W/SW swell from the African system arrives mid the following week. 

Check back Wed for a fresh update.