South Australian surf forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 25th March)

Best Days: South Coast tomorrow morning, Friday morning, Saturday, Sunday morning, next week

Recap

Another good pulse of reinforcing groundswell through yesterday on the South Coast with 3-4ft sets off Middleton and workable conditions before becoming wind affected into the afternoon. Today the swell has dropped a bit with average conditions while the Mid Coast has been tiny to flat.

This week and weekend (Mar 26 - 29)

Later today a good new long-period S/SW groundswell is due to arrive across the South Coast, generated by a strong low that formed south of WA this week.

This swell is expected to peak tomorrow morning with good 3-4ft sets across Middleton, 0.5-1ft on the Mid Coast max if that, easing into the afternoon and further Friday.

The easing trend will be slowed through Friday by a weak polar front that's currently south-west of Tassie. This is producing a fetch of strong S/SW winds, with Middleton hanging around 3ft on the sets, tiny to flat on the Mid.

Winds will start to improve into tomorrow with a less than ideal but workable E/NE-NE morning breeze, shifting S/SE into the afternoon, NE Friday morning ahead of weak S'ly sea breezes.

Moving into the weekend and Saturday looks great for the exposed beaches with a N/NE tending N/NW and then variable later.

A new S/SW groundswell is due into the afternoon Saturday, generated by a poorly aligned polar front, but on the back of all the current activity it'll provide some fun sets. Middleton is likely to kick to 2ft+, easing back from 2ft Sunday as offshore winds persist from the NW, giving into a SW change.

Next week onwards (Mar 30 onwards)

As touched on last update, we've got an intensification of the Southern Ocean storm track from this weekend into next week, generating what now looks to be one large long-period swell and plenty more moderate sized pulses.

A significant polar low is forecast to form east of the Heard Island region later Friday, with a broad fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds due to be projected through our south-western swell window.

Currently the swell from this low is on track for Tuesday, building through the day and with local variable winds. We'll have a closer look at this Friday though.