Average week, lots of swell from Sunday

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 23rd October)

Best Days: No great days this week

Recap

Friday's great pulse of W/SW groundswell on the Mid dropped back to a smaller but fun 1-2ft on Saturday, back to a tiny 0.5-1ft Sunday.

The South Coast hung around the 3ft range on the sets most of the weekend across Middleton but with average onshore winds.

This morning conditions were a little better down South with a lighter more variable breeze and leftover 2ft sets off Middleton, while the Mid was hanging in the 0.5-1ft range.

This week and weekend (Oct 24 - 29)

The current forecast period is fairly poor with no decents swells for the Mid Coast, while onshore winds will spoil any decent size due across the South Coast swell magnets.

Looking at tomorrow and a reinforcing mid-period swell seen today will ease back through tomorrow, down from 1-2ft at Middleton during the morning, tiny into the afternoon.

A deepening surface trough/low moving in from the west will bring funky and varying winds, likely out of the E/NE during the morning (possibly tending more offshore) before freshening from the E/SE at some stage into the afternoon. The Mid coast will be clean but hardly cracking 0.5ft.

We should see a new SW groundswell later tomorrow and more so Wednesday morning, produced late last week and over the weekend by a slow moving polar low that formed south-west of Western Australia.

This swell looks to only come in at an inconsistent 2ft+ across Middleton (tiny to flat on the Mid) but the surface trough will move across us, bringing poor S/SE tending S/SW winds.

We may see more variable winds as the swell eases Thursday, but the size will be limited, coming in at 1-2ft across Middleton, fading through the day and near flat Friday under strengthen offshore N'ly winds.

Saturday will remain tiny to flat down South, though the Mid Coast should see a tiny spike in W/SW swell to 1ft or so from a a strong but short-lived front pushing through the Bight on Thursday evening and Friday. Winds will strengthen from the W/NW in any case, kicking up a building windswell to 1-1.5ft later in the day.

This front will be the first in a flurry of strengthening mid-latitude systems pushing up towards WA and through the Bight and under us, owing to a strengthening node of the Long Wave Trough moving in from the west over the weekend.

The models are still divergent regarding the positioning, timing and strength of each front but what we should see is large levels of W/SW swell from Sunday through early next week with winds from the western quadrant, more on this Wednesday though.

Comments

udo's picture
udo's picture
udo Monday, 23 Oct 2017 at 2:59pm

A very lucky lass at Normanville that GWS was aggressive.

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Monday, 23 Oct 2017 at 3:32pm

Very, sounded hectic.

PeteH's picture
PeteH's picture
PeteH Monday, 23 Oct 2017 at 6:28pm

The media is calling it a rogue shark, but I reckon it's just a great white getting curious and doing what they do. Notwithstanding that it could have tuned out much worse than it did!

mitch21590's picture
mitch21590's picture
mitch21590 Tuesday, 24 Oct 2017 at 4:26pm

Can you sort out the camera at Middleton Craig. Not really much point in it staring straight into the bay. Can you at least point it to the left. cheers

Craig's picture
Craig's picture
Craig Tuesday, 24 Oct 2017 at 4:29pm

It is looking at the left, it's just that the swell is too small for it to break.

We've got a supplementary Point cam coming soon.