South Point • Statistics for March

March: Autumn Arrives and the Swell Becomes More Organised

March is the opening door to the fair-to-excellent season. The average swell height remains at 1.9m (6.2ft), but the period stretches to 12.5s, and the directional spread starts to shift favourably. SW still dominates with 38.4%, and SSW contributes another 27.3%, but WSW jumps to 5.8% and W to 1.5%, giving South Point a slightly more direct window into the south-west to west groundswell. These longer-period, more westerly components are the early signs of the Southern Ocean storm track waking up, and when they align they produce much cleaner lines across the WNW-facing break.

Wind-wise, the ideal offshore quadrant (ENE-E-ESE-SE) is present 36.6% of the time, with ideal surfing conditions 19%. The wind distribution is more balanced than summer: SSE at 18.8%, SE at 15.2%, S at 14.0%, and ESE at 11.6%. The bad onshore W-NW sector is still only 9.5%, so South Point is not getting trashed by westerlies just yet. Air temps cool slightly to 20.0°C, the water sits at 21.1°C, and rainfall increases to 0.79 mm/day. March is about the first real groundswell of autumn - a good month to start watching the charts.