Good swells on the way

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 23rd December)

Best Days: Protected spots Wednesday morning, Thursday morning, protected spots next Monday

Recap

Fun, clean though smaller waves into Saturday, with Friday's swell dropping back, but coming in nice and to 3-4ft+ in the South West, 1-2ft in Mandurah. Perth was tiny and to 1-1.5ft, while everywhere was smaller and onshore yesterday.

Today the surf was still average and small, though a slight kick in new swell is expected this afternoon but with sea breezes.

This week and weekend (Dec 24 - 29)

We look ahead to our large W/SW groundswell due over the coming days and there's been no real change to the expected timing or size.

Tomorrow will see this afternoon's small swell easing under less than ideal S/SE tending S/SW winds, while into Wednesday, the new W/SW groundswell will build rapidly. This swell was generated yesterday and this morning by a frontal progression projecting a fetch of W/SW gales towards us.

This frontal system is currently weakening to our south-west, with the swell due to build quickly Christmas morning, reaching 6-8ft+ across the South West swell magnets into the afternoon, 2-3ft in Mandurah and 2ft to occasionally 3ft in Perth.

Conditions will be best in protected spots with a S/SE-SE morning breeze across most locations, giving into strong sea breezes.

Boxing Day (Thursday) morning looks a little dicey now, as a small trough off the coast brings N/NE tending N winds around Perth and Mandurah, E/SE tending E/NE South West, onshore from the W/SW-SW into the afternoon. Size wise, Margs should ease from 6ft+, 2ft to occasionally 3ft in Mandurah and 2ft in Perth.

A couple of weak trailing fronts will slow the easing trend into Friday, but an approaching mid-latitude frontal progression will unfortunately bring onshore W/SW tending W/NW winds, W'ly Saturday with a building mid-period swell.

The progression will generate a larger but onshore increase in W/SW swell on Sunday as a fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds are projected right up and into us later week and into Saturday. The South West is likely to reach 8ft on the sets, 3ft in Mandurah and 2-3ft in Perth but with strong W tending S/SW winds.

We may see winds swing to the S'th Monday as the swell eases ahead of a possible larger SW groundswell into the middle of next week. We'll have another look at this on Wednesday. Merry Christmas!

Comments

fitzfoo61's picture
fitzfoo61's picture
fitzfoo61 Tuesday, 24 Dec 2019 at 10:08am

Merry Christmas to the team at Swellnet,hope you all get to enjoy a few frothy waves for your Xmas.Thanks for all the great work through 2019...Rock on: Fitzfoo....