Indian Ocean Basin analysis by Craig Brokensha (issued Thursday 5th October)

This week through next week (Oct 6 - 13)

Large levels of inconsistent groundswell started to push in yesterday afternoon, pulsing strong on dark and peaking this morning with large surf seen across the entire Indonesian archipelago.

The trend from here on into the weekend is down, stopped only by an inconsistent, reinforcing S'ly groundswell due Sunday across eastern locations (smaller to the west).

The source of this reinforcing swell was a 'bombing' low that formed late in Indonesia's swell window, and as a result it'll be very inconsistent and south in nature.

A peak is due Sunday morning before easing into the afternoon, small into next week.

Into Wednesday the models are incorrectly combining swells wth a small, long-period signal not expected to offer much in the way of size.

The Indian Ocean will fall quiet through the weekend and early next week, with the only real source of swell being a broad, low firing up to the south-east of South Africa on Sunday.

Unfortunately the peak wind strength will be on the north-eastern flank, aimed towards the polar shelf, with weaker W/SW winds pushing up in our south-western swell window.

The moderate sized, inconsistent SW groundswell is due Monday (16th), with it impacting the Maldives next Saturday (14th).

Looking closer at the Maldives, and SE trade-swell should start to ease across the region tomorrow thanks to weaker trades in the Indian Ocean. This trend will continue into the weekend and early next week.

A slight restrengthening of the trades next week should create building levels of surf from Wednesday. It only looks moderate in size but fun.

Eastern Indonesia:

Large, easing S/SW groundswell this afternoon, further tomorrow and into Saturday.

Moderate-large, reinforcing inconsistent S'ly groundswell for Sunday morning to 6ft+, easing through the day.

Slower outlook next week.

Moderate sized, inconsistent SW groundswell building Sunday (15th), peaking Monday (16th) to 4-6ft on the magnets.

Weak E/SE-SE trades, light and variable each morning. Slightly fresher winds Sunday afternoon and evening.

Uluwatu 16-day Forecast Graph/WAMs

Western Indonesia/Mentawais/South Sumatra:

Large S/SW groundswell easing this afternoon, smaller Friday and Saturday.

Small to moderate, reinforcing S'ly groundswell for Sunday to 4ft, easing into Monday.

Small, inconsistent long-period swell building Tuesday, peaking Wednesday to 3-5ft.

Moderate + sized, inconsistent SW groundswell building Sunday (15th), peaking to 5-6ft into the afternoon across exposed breaks.

Fresh SE-S/SE trades across southern locations, moderate the north over the coming days.

Winds slowly strengthening over the weekend again and persisting fresh next week across southern locations, though becoming more variable to the north from Monday.

Mentawai 16-day Forecast Graph/WAMs

Maldives:

Moderate sized SE trade-swell easing tomorrow from the 4ft+ range across the southern atolls, smaller into the weekend but not getting below 3ft (smaller Male).

Background levels of S'ly groundswell to 3ft or so through the period.

Building SE trade-swell from Wednesday back to 4ft+ (smaller Male).

Moderate sized S'ly groundswell building Friday week, peaking Saturday (14th) to 5-6ft across the southern atolls (smaller Male).

Winds shifting more W/SW into the end of the week across central and northern locations, more variable to the south.

Light SW-S/SW winds into the weekend across central and southern locations, tending SE across southern locations.

Variable winds next week with fresher E/SE-E winds to the south early in the week.