Poor outlook with a return of the sou-easters

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

South Australian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday March 28th)

Best Days: Mid Coast for the keen on Thursday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

  • Small leftover surf tomorrow with light-mod S winds, increasing
  • Freshening S/SE winds Wed with weak levels of SW swell building later
  • Mod-large SW groundswell Thu with strong S/SE-SE winds
  • Easing SW swell Fri with gusty SE tending S/SE winds Fri
  • Fading swell Sat and Sun with fresh E/SE tending S/SE winds Sat, lighter Sun AM

Recap

A great weekend of surf for the South Coast with light winds and clean conditions along with good 3ft surf across Middleton Saturday, stronger yesterday and to 3-4ft with some pumping waves on the exposed beaches.

Today the swell has started to ease but conditions were great at dawn ahead of a shallow S'ly change. The Mid Coast was tiny all weekend with the swell being too south in nature.

This week and weekend (Mar 29 – Apr 3)

Compared to the last couple of days, the coming period isn't that flash at all unfortunately with a strong blocking high due to move tomorrow in the wake of a shallow trough today.

This high will sit in the Bight as a strong low forms off the East Coast, squeezing it's eastern flank directing persistent, strong SE-S/SE winds across the state.

Swell wise we've got a moderate to large SW groundswell due on Thursday with just enough size to provide some fun sets on the Mid Coast.

Tomorrow morning winds will only be light to moderate from the S/SE but we'll be in between swells with 1-2ft leftovers across Middleton.

Come Wednesday winds will be fresh from the S/SE and we should start to see some weak SW swell building into the afternoon but Thursday is when we'll see our stronger SW groundswell filling in.

The source of this swell was a strong polar low that developed south-east of the Heard Island region on the weekend. A fetch of severe-gale W/SW winds were generated in our far south-western swell window, with the low now weakening while continuing east under the country. A great fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds are continuing in our swell window and we'll see the swell come in at a strong 4-5ft across Middleton (possibly odd bigger one) on Thursday with 1-1.5ft sets on the Mid Coast. We may see the magnets pick up the odd bigger sneaker on the favourable parts of the tide but take down a fun board.

Winds will strengthen on Thursday out of the SE-S/SE, creating terrible conditions down South with gusty SE tending S/SE winds on Friday as the swell eases.

Unfortunately the slow moving nature off the low off the East Coast will spoil conditions into the weekend down South withy a gusty E/SE-SE morning breeze Saturday, lighter E/SE on Sunday but with no major swell. The Mid Coast will become tiny to flat.

We may see winds tip E/NE on Monday morning but with no swell left in the tank due to the blocking nature of the 1034hPa high in the Bight. This will also lead to a run of small surf through the rest of next week. More on this Wednesday.

Comments

35_degrees's picture
35_degrees's picture
35_degrees Monday, 28 Mar 2022 at 3:03pm

Feels like a december pattern still

Blingas's picture
Blingas's picture
Blingas Monday, 28 Mar 2022 at 4:39pm

Agree 35_degrees very weird weather at this stage...