Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 1st January)

Best Days: Protected spots over the coming days, the South West magnets Saturday morning and early Sunday

Recap

Happy New Year! Good clean conditions across all locations yesterday morning and still plenty of swell to 6ft across the South West, 2-3ft in Mandurah and 2ft across Perth, a bit smaller and back to 4-5ft, 2ft and 1-2ft respectively today.

This week and weekend (Jan 2 - 5)

Later today we should see some new mid-period W/SW swell on the build, but a larger and less consistent groundswell is due tomorrow. These swells were generated by a strong low that formed south-east of Madagascar on the weekend, and we should see sets reaching 8ft across the South West swell magnets through the day, 2-3ft in Mandurah and Perth.

Winds are dicey and only favourable for protected spots tomorrow, out of the S/SW in the South West, more S'ly further north.

Friday unfortunately looks similar as the swell starts to ease with S/SW breezes across the South West, more S'ly to the north.

The weekend will become much cleaner, but the swell small and fading, with the South West the pick. Offshore E'ly winds are due Saturday with easing sets from 3-5ft in the South West, 1-2ft Mandurah and tiny Perth.

Sunday will see winds veer more E/NE with small, fading surf.

Looking at Tropical Cyclone Calvinia and the swell potential expected for our coast as it gets absorbed into the westerly storm track.

The swell generating fetch isn't ideal but we'll see a tight fetch of gale to severe-gale W'ly winds aimed through our western swell window from tomorrow afternoon through Saturday, with a fun pulse of W/SW groundswell due Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.

Size wise it looks about in line with model forecasts and up to 6ft+ or so across the South West, 2-3ft in Mandurah and 2ft Perth but the remnants could clip the state bringing onshore winds. ECMWF has better morning SE offshores, but we'll have to go over this again on Friday.