South Australian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday January 1st)

Best Days: Thursday morning next week but more so Friday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Poor S/SE windswell mixed in with mid-period S/SW swell Mon-Wed with onshore winds
• Large S/SW groundswell for Thu with E/SE winds, easing with NE winds Fri AM

Recap

Happy New Year! The run of poor surf continued across the South Coast yesterday, tiny to flat on the Mid Coast. A lumpy/sloppy windswell for the desperate is on offer down South this morning.

This weekend and next week (Jan 2 - 8)

The coming period remains average wind wise, but we've got an upgrade in the groundswell due later week across the state.

Our possible window of variable winds for tomorrow morning now looks to have closed, with a trough due to move in around dawn, bringing increasing onshore S/SW winds. There'll be no decent swell in the mix in any case with a weak mix of windswell back background S/SW energy.

Into Sunday winds will strengthen from the S/SE as a high to our south-west is squeezed by polar frontal activity and a surface trough to our east. This will kick up a poor quality S/SE windswell Monday, mixed in with the first of a series of S/SW swells.

Monday's and a secondary mid-period S/SW swell for Wednesday are being generated by polar fronts developing in the Heard Island region, pushing east through our swell window. Size wise sets to 3ft are due across Middleton without tiny 1ft waves on the Mid Monday and Wednesday, though strong S-S/SE winds will spoil the party down South.

Of greater importance is a polar low developing in the same region as the polar frontal activity, with a significant fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W'ly winds forecast to be projected east through our southern swell window. The low, on top of an active sea state will produce a large S/SW groundswell for Thursday.

Size wise we're looking at strong 5-6ft sets across the Middleton stretch, with the Mid Coast only coming in around 1ft to possibly 1.5ft. Winds should start to improve and swing E/SE Thursday morning, best Friday with a light NE'ly but check back here Monday for more on this. Have a great weekend!