Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday April 19th)

Best Days: Swell magnets in the South West tomorrow morning, Wednesday in the South West as the swell builds, Thursday all locations, Friday all locations, Saturday morning South West magnets

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small mid-period SW swell tomorrow with morning E/SE winds
• Building SW groundswell Wed PM with morning E tending S/SW winds
• Large, long-period S/SW groundswell Thu with fresh E/SE morning winds, easing slowly Fri with fresh morning E/NE winds

Recap

Our new swell filled in Saturday with clean conditions and 3-5ft surf in the South West through the morning, peaking into the afternoon with a bit more size than expected, easing back from a fun 4-5ft yesterday morning.

Mandurah and Perth started tiny but increased through the afternoon, good and easing from 2ft and 1-2ft respectively yesterday morning.

Today conditions are poor with an onshore change and easing surf.

This weekend and next week (Apr 20 – 25)

We'll see the surf clean back up into tomorrow as winds shift offshore from the E/SE but swell wise we'll be looking at background, mid-period energy to 3-4ft on the South West magnets, tiny to the north.

Wednesday morning will be clean again but small, with an afternoon increase in new swell, ahead of the larger, long-period S/SW groundswell for Thursday.

The source of this swell will be a 'bombing' low but its structure has changed a little since late last week.

The low is currently 'bombing' south-west of us, with it dropping 24hPa within a 24 hour period and this will see a great fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds firing up in our south-western and then southern swell windows.

With the low developing a little earlier than forecast last week we should see a bit more size and energy across our coast while also arriving a little earlier. The swell should start building Wednesday afternoon in the South West, reaching 6ft+ across the magnets but with sea breezes, with the swell peaking Thursday to 8ft+ with 2-3ft sets in Mandurah and 2ft+ waves across Perth.

Winds look great and moderate to fresh out of the E/SE, giving into afternoon sea breezes while Friday will again be excellent with fresh morning E/NE breezes as the swell eases fairly steadily from 6ft+ and 2ft respectively.

The weekend will be best across the South West magnets along with a further drop in size and fresh E/NE offshore, while we'll see an inconsistent, background SW groundswell Sunday. Size wise expect surf in the 4-5ft+ range and with NE winds.

Longer term we've got a run of smaller, mid-period swells next week with funky winds, but we'll take a closer look at this on Wednesday.