Poor period ahead

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday March 24th)

Best Days: No good days

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

  • Building mid-period W/SW swell Tue, peaking Wed/Thu but with onshore W/NW winds, shifting SW Thu

Recap

A mix of easing SW swell and new S'ly swell yesterday but with less than ideal conditions across Margs, best in protected spots. Mandurah and Perth were bumpy but workable with waves around 2ft or so.

Today conditions are cleaner on the coast but the swell smaller and fading.

This week and next (Mar 25 - Apr 2)

We'll see the current small surf continuing to fade tomorrow with clean conditions under a morning offshore. Moving into Friday a slight increase in mid-period swell should provide 2-3ft sets across the South West, tiny to the north and with a favourable E/SE morning offshore.

The weekend doesn't hold any hope for decent surf with the swell fading again Saturday, kicking very slightly Sunday but likely not over 2-3ft (weak, background energy). Conditions will be favourable each morning though ahead of sea breezes.

Moving into next week and the strengthening (though not overly strong) node of the Long Wave Trough will direct an increase in frontal activity up towards us from late this week through the weekend, but all in all it's not overly significant.

We'll see a slow moving, multi-staged frontal progression with fronts spawning around a low, though fetch strength won't really reach gale-force, resulting in a moderate to possibly large W/SW swell event, building Tuesday and likely peaking through Wednesday/Thursday.

Size wise we'll be looking at surf around 5-6ft in the South West and 2ft to possibly 3ft across Mandurah, 2ft+ in Perth at its peak.

Unfortunately one of the fronts will edge into us mid-next week as the swell peaks bringing onshore W/NW winds, SW on Thursday. Conditions may improve a touch on the backside of the swell, but we'll have to review this Friday.