Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 18th August)

Best Days: Thursday on the Surf Coast beaches and east of Melbourne, Friday everywhere, Saturday morning exposed coast, Sunday east of Melbourne, Monday everywhere

Recap

Saturday provided fun waves across both coasts most of the day as winds remained light and variable for the most part with 2ft waves on the Surf Coast and 3-4ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula.

Yesterday the onshores really kicked in with the arrival of a new swell but there were no decent options for a quality wave. These onshore winds have persisted into today with a drop in swell, but we should see a good new SW groundswell arriving later in the day albeit with fresh to strong S/SE winds.

This week (Aug 19 - 23)

A couple of good SW groundswells are expected across the state tomorrow, Wednesday afternoon and then Thursday, but conditions won't improve until the later day, with the deep Tasman Low off the East Coast stalling until moving off later Wednesday.

Moderate S/SE winds are due through tomorrow and Wednesday across both coasts with no real options for a quality wave.

Come Thursday, a medium sized mix of long-range and medium-range SW groundswell from polar frontal activity moving east from the Heard Island region should fill in as winds swing NE.

The Surf Coast beaches will be the pick with inconsistent 3ft to occasional 4ft sets due at 13th Beach and Fairhaven, while the Mornington Peninsula should see clean 6ft+ sets.

Friday should be clean everywhere as the swell drops from an inconsistent 3ft and 5-6ft respectively under local offshore tending variable winds.

This weekend onwards (Aug 24 onwards)

The swell will bottom out into Saturday and we may see winds continue from the north, but the models are a little divergent on this. Into Sunday and Monday though a very inconsistent long-range W/SW groundswell is due across the state, generated by a very strong and powerful polar frontal progression firing up in the South-western Indian Ocean and pushing east while projecting towards WA over the coming days.

This will produce a very large swell for WA and Indo with a fair bit of size loss due to swell decay as it travels the extra thousands of kilometres towards us.

Still we should see strong but inconsistent sets across both coasts, peaking Sunday afternoon to 3ft to occasionally 4ft on the Surf Coast and 6ft to occasionally 8ft on the Mornington Peninsula. Winds look as if they'll be from the NE Sunday morning and then N'ly Monday morning, but we'll review this Wednesday.