Western Australian Surf Forecast by Steve Shearer (issued Fri September 15th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Plenty of size Sat, building again Sun with onshore W-SW winds
• More large surf and onshore winds early next week
• Shift to more S’ly winds from Wed, possibly tending SE Thurs/Fri with smaller swells 
• Smaller but still solid SW pulses Thurs/Fri
• Storm track looks to fire up again next week with rebuilding size into next weekend

Recap

Stormy, onshore surf continues with size in the 8ft range yesterday, dropping a notch today, with fresh W’ly quarter winds. Smaller 3-4ft surf in Perth/Mandurah has offered up some onshore surf for the keen. 

Messy beachies on tap for the keen

This weekend and next week (Sep 15 - 22)

No great change to the outlook. SWWA is mired in an onshore flow as a high pressure belt to the north gets squeezed by a high riding active W’ly storm track. We should see some easing of this pressure gradient squeeze over the weekend, while maintaining an onshore flow, and messy surf.

Size looks to remain in the 6-8ft range across the weekend as multiple W/SW swell trains make landfall from a huge fetch across the SE Indian Ocean, and with a S’ly bias to winds, we should see a few more protected spots and Bays become surfable between the Capes this weekend with continuing messy 3-4ft surf across Perth/Mandurah.

Into next week and the massive, zonal fetch clears WA longitudes early in the week. Swells from this source will tend more SW at elevated levels (6-8ft) and continuing onshore winds.

The high pressure belt tracks towards WA Tues/Wed, briefly suppressing the storm track and offering the first window of clean conditions possibly Thurs/Fri as high pressure slips under the state. That would co-incide with a low point in wave heights from the suppressed storm track, likely in the 4-6ft range across the SWWA corner, 2-3ft in Perth/Mandurah.

Mid week, the blocking pattern breaks down and we see another series of powerful disturbances track NE of Heard Island with multiple swell generating fetches becoming active again in the SE Indian Ocean from mid-late next week. With another series of gale to severe gale force fetches active we’ll see another period of over-lapping swell trains and elevated wave heights across the SW corner, likely with onshore winds again reflecting the northwards located high. 

Pencil in onshore surf rebuilding in the 6-8ft range at a minimum from Fri or Sat into next weekend. Again, much better suited to Indonesia or the NW of WA. 

We’ll see how it looks on Mon and if winds may offer up a few windows of opportunity in the onshore flow.

Seeya then and have a great weekend!