Generally average outlook

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

South Australian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 3rd May)

Best Days: Mid Coast tomorrow morning keen surfers, South Coast Sunday morning

Recap

Fun waves across the South Coast magnets yesterday morning with a bit of wind to contend with, better today with the swell coming in more consistent and with a weaker offshore wind. The Mid Coast has been a poor and choppy 2ft or so with a mix of low quality swells.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This weekend and next week (May 4 – 10)

An onshore change due later today will linger into tomorrow across the South Coast with a moderate SW tending fresher S/SW breeze spoiling a small leftover swell. The Mid Coast should see an early S/SE-SE breeze though size wise we'll be looking at easing 1-2ft sets.

A small new mid-period S/SW swell should build in the wake of the change tomorrow afternoon, generated by a weak fetch of strong S/SW winds in our southern swell window.

Building sets to 2ft+ off Middleton should be seen into tomorrow afternoon, easing from a similar size Sunday as winds improve slightly. A morning E/NE-NE breeze should create improving conditions down South and OK waves for keen surfers ahead of sea breezes. With the rest of the outlook looking poor, it'd probably be worth capitalising on this morning of fun surf. The Mid Coast will be clean but tiny.

As touched on the last few updates, the outlook for next week remains void of any decent surf due to an unfavourable Southern Ocean setup.

Monday looks clean again down South but it'll be tiny.

Moving into Tuesday and a weakening front pushing in under WA early next week will move across us Tuesday, bringing a N/NW tending W/SW change and building mid-period W/SW swell for the Mid Coast (small to tiny and windswelly on the South Coast). We're only looking at weak waves building to 1-1.5ft, peaking Wednesday morning to 1-2ft but with SW winds.

A stronger polar front projecting up and towards us mid-week will move in with strength, bringing strong W/SW winds from Thursday through the end of the week and a mix of W/SW windswell and SW groundswell.

There doesn't look to be any quality to these swells at this stage, with better surf into the following week as winds improve and the swells sort themselves out, but check back here Monday for more on this. Have a great weekend!