Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 2nd April)
Best Days: Early Thursday on the Surf Coast, Saturday morning winds pending, Sunday and Monday mornings east of Melbourne
Recap
Yesterday started off small to tiny across most of the state but clean with local offshores from the N'th and these freshened during the day as the swell slowly increased.
Today a touch more energy is breaking across the state with clean 2ft waves on the Surf Coast and bigger 3ft sets at 13th Beach. The Mornington Peninsula saw bigger 4-5ft sets, but conditions are deteriorating after early NW winds have since swung SW across most spots. We'll see a further kick in size during the day as this morning's onshore change backs off, so a late one at selected spots could be a goer.
This week (Apr 2 – Apr 6)
Unfortunately there's been no real change to the coming day's forecast, with two considerable pulses of W/SW and then larger SW groundswell expected to be spoilt by onshore winds.
The only real chance for a decent wave will be early tomorrow on the Surf Coast when we'll probably see W/NW winds around Torquay ahead of a fresh S/SW change.
Into Friday you'll have to put your thinking cap on and work around a large swell to 4-5ft+ on the Surf Coast and 6-8ft+ on the Mornington Peninsula under SE winds.
This weekend onwards (Apr 7 onwards)
Saturday is now looking better across the state but in saying this, it's real tricky to forecast.
Another funky surface trough will linger across the state on Saturday with E'ly winds feeding into its eastern flank across the Gippsland Coast, while on the western side we'll see less favourable but weaker S'ly winds (illustrated right).
The axis or point of change for this trough looks to fall near the Surf Coast, and this would result in E'ly winds across the Mornington Peninsula Saturday morning, with lighter SW winds across the Surf Coast (that may even be variable and tend light offshore).
The positioning of this trough is still being debated by the models (making it hard to forecast), so with this in mind it it'll be worth keeping an eye on the model updates through this evening and tomorrow before checking back for an update by me on Friday.
In any case we'll see medium levels of SW groundswell easing from Friday, while into Sunday a new longer-range and less consistent SW groundswell is due to fill in and peak later in the day.
The source of this swell is a broad and vigorous polar front firing up east of Heard Island and pushing slowly east over the coming days before weakening below the Bight Friday evening.
A peak to 3-4ft+ is expected on the Surf Coast and 6ft to occasionally 8ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula Sunday afternoon/evening as winds swing from E/NE Sunday morning to the SE after lunch.
Monday looks to play out similar wind-wise as the swell drops away from 3ft to occasionally 4ft and 6ft+ respectively.
Longer term there's nothing too major on the cards for next week until Friday. We'll have another look at this as well as the weekend's winds this coming Friday.
Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 2nd April)
Best Days: Early Thursday on the Surf Coast, Saturday morning winds pending, Sunday and Monday mornings east of Melbourne
Recap
Yesterday started off small to tiny across most of the state but clean with local offshores from the N'th and these freshened during the day as the swell slowly increased.
Today a touch more energy is breaking across the state with clean 2ft waves on the Surf Coast and bigger 3ft sets at 13th Beach. The Mornington Peninsula saw bigger 4-5ft sets, but conditions are deteriorating after early NW winds have since swung SW across most spots. We'll see a further kick in size during the day as this morning's onshore change backs off, so a late one at selected spots could be a goer.
This week (Apr 2 – Apr 6)
Unfortunately there's been no real change to the coming day's forecast, with two considerable pulses of W/SW and then larger SW groundswell expected to be spoilt by onshore winds.
The only real chance for a decent wave will be early tomorrow on the Surf Coast when we'll probably see W/NW winds around Torquay ahead of a fresh S/SW change.
Into Friday you'll have to put your thinking cap on and work around a large swell to 4-5ft+ on the Surf Coast and 6-8ft+ on the Mornington Peninsula under SE winds.
This weekend onwards (Apr 7 onwards)
Saturday is now looking better across the state but in saying this, it's real tricky to forecast.
The axis or point of change for this trough looks to fall near the Surf Coast, and this would result in E'ly winds across the Mornington Peninsula Saturday morning, with lighter SW winds across the Surf Coast (that may even be variable and tend light offshore).
The positioning of this trough is still being debated by the models (making it hard to forecast), so with this in mind it it'll be worth keeping an eye on the model updates through this evening and tomorrow before checking back for an update by me on Friday.
In any case we'll see medium levels of SW groundswell easing from Friday, while into Sunday a new longer-range and less consistent SW groundswell is due to fill in and peak later in the day.
The source of this swell is a broad and vigorous polar front firing up east of Heard Island and pushing slowly east over the coming days before weakening below the Bight Friday evening.
A peak to 3-4ft+ is expected on the Surf Coast and 6ft to occasionally 8ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula Sunday afternoon/evening as winds swing from E/NE Sunday morning to the SE after lunch.
Monday looks to play out similar wind-wise as the swell drops away from 3ft to occasionally 4ft and 6ft+ respectively.
Longer term there's nothing too major on the cards for next week until Friday. We'll have another look at this as well as the weekend's winds this coming Friday.