Western Australia Surf Forecast (Wed 6th Nov)

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thermalben started the topic in Wednesday, 6 Nov 2013 at 6:10pm

Western Australia Surf Forecast (Wed 6th Nov)
Forecast prepared by Ben Matson

Tues/Wed Recap
Looks like Monday afternoon's new long range groundswell - despite being a few hours later than expected - ended up coming in very close to expectations. Tuesday morning held somewhere in the 6-8ft range throughout Margaret River, with clean 2ft+ waves on offer along the metro Perth beaches. Size has eased this morning but winds have remained generally favourable.

Another expected increase in new groundswell for today is starting to show on the Cape Naturalise buoy (see image to right), and the Yallingup surfcam is also showing strong lines somewhere around 5-6ft (see surfcam snaps below). This confirms the increase, also keeping in mind that Yalls is smaller than other parts of the coast under this swell direction, which is a little more south than usual. Hard to assess how high it'll peak as we probably won't see the top of the swell cycle for another hour or two, but all indications are for exposed spots to be somewhere around the previously forecast 6-8ft range.

Best days
Thursday and maybe early Friday down south at the small wave spots. Otherwise, we've got a new groundswell due to peak in size next Tuesday.

This week (Nov 7-8)
Not much to get excited about. The current swell will steadily ease overnight and trend downwards quickly throughout Thursday. Early morning will have the most size so get stuck into that as smaller surf will prevail on Friday. Conditions will remain clean both days with offshore winds (ahead of afternoon sea breezes). Make the most of the next two days as the swell will be all gone by the weekend.

Weekend Outlook (Nov 9-10)
Tiny clean conditions all weekend. Nothing to worry about unless you are totally desperate. But absolutely not worth the drive down south, if you're thinking of a road trip.

Longer Term (Nov 11 onwards)
A deepening solitary low pressure system currently developing well to the west of Heard Island is looking bloody good on paper at the moment (check the synoptic chart and surface winds in the WAMS) however its initial stages are aimed more towards Indonesia than West Oz.

The leading edge of this groundswell will arrive Monday morning (with a kick in size likely into the afternoon) but we won't really see the bulk swell energy push through until Tuesday when a secondary swell from the same system is due to arrive, generated by the latter stages of this low as it slowly advances west through the Southern Ocean.

Our computer model forecasts has progged surf height in the 6ft range in and around the Margaret River region for Tuesday afternoon, but I think the models are undercooking the low, and we'll probably see set waves pushing closer to 8ft.

At this stage local weather looks like it'll be typical late spring/summer stuff, with another developing heat trough along the West Coast leading to fresh S/SE winds as the swell reaches a peak. Let's hope it (the heat trough) moves a little more to the west, allowing winds to swing more E/SE in direction. I'll update this in more detail on Friday.