Tricky outlook continues with flukey swell sources

Craig Brokensha picture
Craig Brokensha (Craig)

Western Australian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday April 12th)

Best Days: Keen surfers Monday morning and Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning south magnets, selected spots Friday morning next week, next Saturday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

  • Small mid-period SW swell for Mon with E/SE winds ahead of strong sea breezes
  • Small-mod sized mid-period S/SW swell building Tue with E/SE winds ahead of strong sea breezes
  • Easing swell Wed with E/NE winds ahead of strong sea breezes
  • Inconsistent, moderate sized long-range W/SW groundswell building slowly Thu, peaking Fri with freshening N/NE winds, easing from the N
  • Easing swell Sat with variable tending W winds
  • Moderate sized mid-period W/SW swell for Sat PM, peaking Sun with strengthening S/SE winds

Recap

A small pulse of S/SW swell came in right on cue yesterday with clean, inconsistent 3ft+ sets across the South West magnets, tiny to flat elsewhere.

Today the swell is easing and there's nowhere to really recommend besides a grovel on the South West magnets.

This weekend and next week (April 13 - 19)

There's no new swell of significance due over the weekend, making it a great one to fix those dings and get other chores done.

Into Monday, a small lift in mid-period SW swell is due from a short-lived low projecting towards us today before breaking down overnight.

A small kick to 3-4ft is due across the South West with tiny waves to the north along with a moderate E/SE offshore ahead of sea breezes.

This swell will ease into Tuesday as our new pulse of mid-period S'ly swell starts to arrive.

Unfortunately this has been downgraded in size slightly, with the late forming polar fetch linked to it now due to be a touch weaker and forming a little further east.

With this, a very acute S'ly swell is due, building Tuesday and reaching 4-5ft across the south magnets in the South West through the afternoon, easing from 4ft or so Wednesday morning.

Morning E/SE winds will create clean conditions Tuesday morning but when the swell peaks, strong sea breezes will spoil the party, with Wednesday seeing better E/NE morning winds ahead of sea breezes.

Smaller surf is due into Thursday morning ahead of an inconsistent pulse of W/SW groundswell that's due to build slowly into the afternoon ahead of a better pulse Friday.

As touched on the last few updates, the source is in our long-range swell window, east of South Africa and south of Madagascar.

A stalling low is generating fetches of strong to gale-force winds, but due to the large distance between us and the storm, there'll be a lot of swell decay and loss in consistency.

A slow increase in size Thursday will culminate in a peak Friday to what now looks to be an inconsistent 4-5ft+ across the South West with 1ft to maybe 2ft sets in Perth and Mandurah.

Winds will tip N/NE on Friday which is less than ideal, freshening before easing into the afternoon.

Saturday looks smaller and with variable winds ahead of a shallow W change.

We may see the remnants of the low in our far swell window generating some small-moderate sized mid-period W/SW swell next Saturday afternoon/Sunday but we'll look at this closer on Monday. Have a great weekend!