The opening day of competition may be on the sleepy side, but some large and heavy surf is on its way to the Margaret River Pro later this week.

The World Surf League caravan has finally made it to Western Australia after an amazing run of surf at Bells Beach over Easter. Conditions are clean with offshore winds, and slow 3-4 foot surf hitting Margaret River as the women's opening round starts up. The swell will build to possibly 4-6 foot surf as the day goes on, but onshore wind will strengthen this afternoon, deteriorating conditions and likely putting a stop to the competition for the day.

The Indian Ocean is awakening and stirring up. A series of frontal systems heading for southwest WA this week will bring heavy and large surf over the coming days. The building swell should reach into the 2-3 metre range, building further up to 3-4 metres later in the week. However, from this afternoon, unfavourable moderate-to-fresh easterly winds will kick in as a front crosses the region, introducing showers and brisk winds to close off ANZAC day and this long weekend. These winds will remain moderate east through to southeasterly on Tuesday, and tending more southerly on Wednesday and Thursday, spoiling surf conditions throughout much of the week. 

Wave Watch III model output showing the large swell clipping southern WA on Friday 29th.

All eyes are on Friday, which should see winds begin to slacken, with this solid and heavy swell lingering. The southwesterly swell should be at its peak near 4 metres, with a building high pressure ridge over southern WA bringing light winds. The contest area should see surf in excess of 3-4 metres, with hopefully workable conditions for an extreme day of competition. The swell will ease into Saturday, but conditions should be even clearer as winds slacken and possibly tend offshore. 

With challenging and impressive surf expected on Friday, and to a lesser extent on Saturday, the WSL will likely try to power through as many of the early rounds today in workable conditions, in order to finish strong next weekend with a window of great surf expected.