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Good surf on the way for the Margaret River Pro

Felix Levesque, Saturday April 15, 2023 - 14:36 AEST

The World Surf League is returning to Western Australia’s Margaret River this week, but will the swell and wind come to play alongside?

After a mostly average and somewhat lacklustre start of the surf season for the world tour, a promising forecast is on the cards for the starting period of this year's Margaret River Pro. The contests waiting period starts off on Thursday this week, when some generally clean 3-5-foot surf can be expected with possibly an initial round or two of contestable conditions.

A more promising outlook comes with a significant frontal feature to the south of South Africa will track east this week, maintaining a broad and persistent area of west-to-southwest winds directed towards the southwest of Australia. This will generate a large swell that should reach 4 to 5 metres, and should start to build on Saturday, peaking on Monday. Solid surf reaching the 6-foot mark is expected over the weekend and early next week, along with generally weak enough winds to make for an exciting and very contestable set of days.

ACCESS-G 10m wind forecast for Sunday showing an initial area of strong southwesterly winds bringing the first bump in swell from mid-week, to start the contest period, and a more significant area of winds to the south of the African continent due to bring the more prolonged period of large surf from the weekend onwards.

The building high pressure ridge over the south of Western Australia from the weekend will also bring about pleasant conditions over this period of promising surf, making a drive down from Perth to see the competition or to visit the regions famous wineries very enticing as well.

Easing surf from Wednesday onwards will mean the contest organisers will try to wrap up the show during this initial period of good surf.

- Weatherzone

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