South Australian Forecast (issued Wednesday 9th September)

Best Days: Thursday and Friday morning South Coast, swell magnets down South over the weekend (keep expectations low)

Recap

Average onshore waves across both coasts yesterday with no real early W'ly breeze to provide a window of clean conditions across the South Coast.

Today lighter winds offered lumpier but small 2ft waves across the Middleton stretch down South with bigger wonkier waves out at Waits, while the Mid continued in the lumpy 1-2ft range.

This week and next (Sep 10 – 18)

Tomorrow will be the pick of the week, with a good new SW groundswell pulse filling in, offering good 3ft sets across the Middleton stretch with 4-5ft waves out at Waits and Parsons under a morning N/NE breeze. The afternoon should remain good as well as winds tend more variable.

Friday will be super straight with a fresh N'ly wind but the swell will ease quickly. Middleton is due to drop from 2ft with 3ft+ sets at Waits early, tiny into the afternoon, so surf before lunch.

The weekend is looking mostly clean down South with offshores Saturday and Sunday morning (a W'ly change may be seen into the afternoon) but the swell will be small to tiny.

Waits and Parsons will be the best options with inconsistent 2ft to possibly 3ft sets ebbing and pulsing through the weekend, while the Mid is due to hold around a tiny 0.5-1ft.

A late kick in W/SW swell due Sunday has been downgraded a touch, as well as the better W/SW groundswell for Monday as the vigorous frontal progression pushing up towards WA is now due to push more towards the North West of the state.

In saying this the Mid may see a kick to 1-1.5ft late Sunday with more size Monday to a very inconsistent 1-2ft sets along with moderate W/SW winds.

The South Coast isn't due to see any major size with infrequent 2ft sets at Middleton and 3-4ft bombs at Waits and Parsons with a W/NW tending W/SW breeze.

From Wednesday and more so Thursday some better groundswell energy is due. Firstly a moderate sized SW groundswell is due Wednesday from a broad fetch of SW gales developing through the Southern Ocean Sunday/Monday.

This should see good 3-4ft surf across Middleton and 5-6ft sets at Waits and Parsons, but behind this, a larger S/SW groundswell is due into Thursday.

This will be generated by a broad and vigorous polar frontal system forming south of WA, with a fetch of severe-gale pre-frontal W/NW winds being followed closely by a secondary fetch of severe-gale to storm-force SW aimed towards Tassie.

A large long-period S/SW groundswell is expected off this, filling in Thursday and coming in around the 6ft range across Middleton with 8ft sets at Waits and deep water reefs. We'll have a closer look at this on Friday though.