South Australian Surf Forecast (issued Mon 10th Mar)

Craig's picture
Craig started the topic in Monday, 10 Mar 2014 at 10:33am

South Australian Forecast (issued Monday 10th March)

Best Days: Wednesday on the Mid Coast, Thursday onwards down South

Recap

The South Coast offered fun peaky waves on Saturday with a building SW groundswell under NE winds which persisted into the afternoon ahead of late sea breezes. The Mid Coast offered fun peelers into the afternoon and evening before easing overnight after the swell peak.

Sunday saw great waves down the South Coast with an easing swell and offshore N/NE winds that shifted more W/NW into the afternoon ahead of a late onshore change.

This change was weak though and offshore winds kicked in again this morning offering clean conditions with a much smaller 2ft of swell around Middleton. The Mid Coast became tiny with 0.5ft lines wrapping into the beaches and reefs.

This week and weekend (Mar 10 - 16)

There's plenty of consistent W/SW and SW groundswell expected over the coming week and weekend all linked to the Long Wave Trough.

From tomorrow afternoon onwards an initial pulse of strong W/SW groundswell will be followed up by SW groundswell pulses through the rest of the week and into the weekend as front after front is aimed from the Southern Ocean, up towards and through the Bight under the effect of the Long Wave Trough. An amplification of the LWT is currently just over the South West of WA but will move into the Bight mid-week and stall there into Friday.

The Mid Coast will see the most size through tomorrow afternoon and mainly Wednesday, to 1.5-2ft while the SW groundswell pulses should keep smaller 1ft+ surf hitting the coast into the end of the week.

The South Coast should hover between 3ft to occasionally 4ft along the Middleton stretch and 3-5ft at Waits from Wednesday onwards, but the largest pulse of SW groundswell is due into Friday afternoon to 3-5ft along Middleton and 4-6ft at Waits. This swell will then ease slowly into Saturday ahead of yet another pulse Sunday.

Local winds will be the thing to work around and tomorrow will unfortunately be bumpy on the Mid with the building swell with a variable tending fresh SW winds. Wednesday is looking much better with the peak in swell and S/SE winds during the morning, while the South Coast will be average with the onshore winds.

From Thursday onwards conditions should be good each morning across both regions, with variable winds each morning, while Saturday looks excellent down South with fresh N'ly offshores ahead of a swing to the NW and late W/SW change.

Sunday looks average with a fresh W/SW'ly (possibly W/NW around Victor) but this will also kick up a stormy 2ft of swell on the Mid Coast.

Next week onwards (Mar 17 onwards)

The Long Wave Trough will move off to the east while weakening over the weekend and this will result in the frontal activity quietening down but also approaching more from the south-southwest with a swing in swell direction to the S/SW expected next week.

There's couple of medium sized S/SW groundswells on the cards as well as a long-range and stronger S/SW swell mid-week, but we'll review this Wednesday.