Western Australian forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday February 7th)

Best Days: Now in the South West, tomorrow morning in the South West

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing surf on the weekend with E/NE winds ahead of relatively weak sea breezes
• Tiny Sun with strengthening W/NW winds
• Small mid-period W swell Mon with mod-fresh W winds
• Building windswell Tue with strong W/SW tending SW winds
• Mod-large mid-period S/SW swell Wed with strong S/SW winds
• Easing S swell Wed with strong S/SE winds

Recap

Yesterday was windy with no real major size seen until later in the day across the South West, while our large S/SW groundswell is seeing more size this morning with easing 6ft+ sets across the South West, 2-3ft in Mandurah and a slow 2ft in Perth. Conditions are still clean and pumping across Margs, well worth taking advantage of.

Pumping surf this afternoon

This weekend and next week (Feb 8 - 14)

We’ll see the current swell, generated by the strong polar low to our south-west easing back in size further tomorrow with tiny waves across Perth and fading 1-2ft sets across Mandurah. Margs should ease back from 4ft or so.

Morning E/NE winds are only due to give into weak sea breezes, while Sunday will be a lay day with tiny surf and strengthening W/NW winds as a weak mid-latitude low moves across us. This looks to be the start of a few days of onshore wind so even though small, Saturday is more than worth getting a surf in on the magnets.

It looks like lingering onshore winds are due into Monday, with only a minimal increase in mid-period W/SW energy, while into Tuesday/Wednesday, a deepening trough right on our doorstep looks to bring strengthening S/SW winds and a size, local increase in mid-period swell.

A low pressure centre is actually due to form in the trough off our South Coast, projecting strong to gale-force S/SW winds up into the corner of the state, generating a large mid-period S/SW swell Wednesday to 6ft to possibly 8ft across the South West, 2ft+ Mandurah and 2ft Perth.

Conditions will be poor though thanks to strong W/SW tending SW winds on Tuesday and strong S/SW winds through Wednesday, while the swell will fade quickly Thursday and go more south in direction under strong S/SE winds.

So all in all a fairly poor period.

Longer term we may see some better groundswell into the following week with more favourable winds, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!