Nias, Mentawai, South Sumatra forecast (Tue Apr 1st)

Nias, Mentawai, South Sumatra forecast (Tuesday April 1st)

Best Days: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday

This week and weekend (Apr 1 - 6)

There's nothing too major on the cards this week, with Friday being the standout as a moderate increase in long-range S/SW groundswell fills in.

The reason for the lack of swell is the presence of a large blocking high across our main swell window in the Indian Ocean, that being from South Africa and Madagascar, all the way towards WA.

This suppresses swell generating storms to the poles with us left to rely on long-range and very inconsistent background energy.

Before Friday's pulse, which has been generated by a strong polar front pushing up towards WA the last couple of days, right on the periphery of our southern swell window, we'll see small and inconsistent 2-3ft waves across exposed south facing breaks, with the odd bigger set likely through Thursday.

Friday should see better size though to 3-5ft at exposed locations, with less size towards Nias and further west, while Southern Sumatra should see some bigger 6ft sets at times.

A slow drop in size is due into the weekend, with the next significant swell due to arrive through Tuesday.

Next week onwards (Apr 7 onwards)

Tuesday's swell will be very south in direction and be a touch smaller than Friday's pulse, generated by a strong polar front pushing up from the Heard Island region towards WA today and tomorrow. This is nearly out of our swell window and the swell will only hit the most exposed south facing beaches.

Southern Sumatra should build see 4-5ft waves, while the Ments is looking at smaller 3-4ft+ surf, with Nias being even smaller again.

After this pulse of swell there's nothing too major on the cards until the next weekend, but we'll have another look at this again on Thursday.

Winds through the period will be light and variable with stronger squalls with passing storms.