The seasons seem to be flying by this year, it feels that winter was only a few weeks ago, although the continuous progression of cold fronts across the south of the country probably have some part to play in this.

(Pic: Steve Arklay)

Australia wide is was mostly an above average spring in terms of swell and favourable winds.

The outliers being Queensland and Western Australia. The former saw endless flat spells, finally broken last week with a moderate sized trade-swell event.

Western Australia however got the rough end of the stick in the form of onshore winds. During most of spring, the westerly storm track was further north than average. This was confirmed by a mostly negative Southern Annular Mode (SAM) index, which describes the north-south movement of the westerly storm track.

When negative we see the westerlies pushed further north and closer to the equator and when positive the westerlies retract more towards the poles.


(Pic: Steve Arklay)

The two winners from the negative SAM are South Australia and Victoria with a seemingly endless winter on the Surf Coast. The Torquay region saw day after day of clean surf between 3-5ft, supplementing a great winter.

It has only been in the past couple of weeks that the fronts have eased off, the weather improved and water started to warm.

The Mid and South Coast's across South Australia have provided plenty of fun waves and some special glass off sessions in the gulf.


(Pic: Craig Brokensha)

The southern NSW coast saw an above average spring with the swell hardly dropping below 2ft for the whole three months at magnets, mixed in with a couple of large and well received groundswell events out of the south (late Octobers being the standout).

(Pic: Craig Brokensha)

The dreaded northerly winds across the North Coast didn't really kick in until the last week or two, and with a steady diet of southerly energy, south swell magnets and open beaches provided waves most days.

(Pic: Ben Matson)

The South Arm in Tasmania didn't provide any standout days with the swell mainly being a touch too west, coming in around average if not slightly better for this time of year.

Tassie's East Coast provided some large clean days from the north-east and south-east with prolonged flat spells in between.

(Pic: Peter Jovic)

One additional benefit of the negative SAM, discussed above, has been late season snowfall across the Alpine regions which yours truly has been getting amongst.

Beyond the resorts there has been some great spring skiing right up until the last weekend of the season.

(Pics: Craig Brokensha)