Western Australian Surf Forecast (issued Fri 28th Feb)

Western Australia Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 28th January)

Best Days: Early Saturday, Sunday morning in Perth and Gero, Wednesday morning

Recap

Conditions have been great the last few days, but the swell has been minimal and only breaking at exposed breaks across the state.

This weekend (Mar 1 - 2)

The strong pulse of SW groundswell from ex-Tropical Cyclone Guito is still on track for tomorrow with no real changes since Wednesday.

Satellite observations picked up the strongest stages of the low yesterday, with a fetch of 35-55kt W/SW winds being generated in our swell window.

This low is now directly south of is along the polar shelf and out of our swell window, the swell currently tracking north-east towards the Margaret River region.

We should see the swell arriving overnight and peaking tomorrow morning in the South West to an inconsistent but strong 6-8ft, with larger sets at offshore reefs and bommies. Perth is looking fun with sets to 2ft+, while Gero should peak in the 4-5ft+ range during the afternoon.

Winds will be OK but not perfect blowing from the E/NE at dawn across most spots before quickly swinging more NE (N/NE around Margs) during the morning ahead of a shallow change into the afternoon (variable north of Bunbury).

Sunday will see a drop in swell and less favourable S/SE winds around Margs, but Perth and Gero should still morning offshores, so aim for another morning surf before the swell drops too much.

Next week onwards (Mar 3 onwards)

There's plenty of swell on the cards for next week owing to a strong node of the Long Wave Trough stalling to our south-west, directing a series of vigorous polar lows up towards the state (pictured right).

The first system will develop this evening and push further north than the low responsible for tomorrow's swell, generating a more westerly groundswell for later Sunday ahead of a peak Monday morning in the 4-6ft range around Margs, 2ft in Perth and 3-4ft up in Gero.

A couple of secondary systems will then piggyback up on the back of this initial system but with less strength. While the core winds will be weaker, this will be somewhat overridden by the fetch acting over an already active sea state, needing to do less work to produce a larger swell.

What will result is another strong pulse of SW groundswell for later Tuesday and Wednesday morning to a similar if not slightly bigger size than Monday's swell.

From Wednesday afternoon onwards though, the swell will drop away with the next increase in size due Friday afternoon. This will be in the form of a series of larger SW groundswells as the Long Wave Trough reaches its peak in intensity, but we'll review this again on Monday.

Coming back to the winds through next week and a S/SE breeze is expected for the most part across the state next week besides Wednesday morning when a much better E/SE'ly is expected. So this will be the morning to keep free next week.