Nias, Mentawai, South Sumatra forecast (Thu 20th Mar)

Nias, Mentawai, South Sumatra forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Thursday 20th March)

Best Days: Friday and Saturday for the most size, every morning onwards for small waves at exposed spots

This week and weekend (Mar 20 - 23)

A small-moderate sized S/SW groundswell should be building across Indonesia today under variable winds, and this swell is expected to ease over the coming days and into the weekend with generally variable winds. Size wise, the most exposed breaks will only be in the 2ft+ range with the next significant increase in swell due later next week (discussed below).

Next week onwards (Mar 24 onwards)

With a large blocking pattern currently setting up across the Indian Ocean (pictured right) we'll see small and inconsistent swells continuing well into the first half of next week.

Into Thursday and Friday though, a long-range and very inconsistent but moderate increase in SW groundswell is due to fill in. This swell has been generated in our far swell window below South Africa by an intense polar frontal progression.

Due to the extremely large distance between the source of the swell and our coasts we're only expected to see very inconsistent 3-4ft waves with 5ft bomb sets across most of Western Indonesia Friday. Winds look generally light abd variable from the SW creating clean glassy conditions.

Longer term there's nothing major on the cards, but we'll review this on Tuesday.