Victorian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 30th January)

Best Days: No great days due to persistent onshore winds. Maybe Wed onwards east of Melbourne (as winds develop more east), but it'll be small.

Recap: Small swells and S/SE thru’ E/SE winds have maintained poor surf conditions in general all week. We did see a brief window of opportunity east of Melbourne this morning as winds went light E’ly but they’re already back around to the south. 

This weekend (Jan 31 - Feb 1)

There are two compounding factors working against the weekend surf forecast: (1) a deep low in the south-western Tasman Sea, which is driving southerly winds about the Victorian coast, and (2) a large blocking high in the southern Bight, which has deflected significant storm activity away from our swell window over the last few days.

If you’re totally desperate to get wet I’d seriously consider a road trip to the Southern NSW coast (check out the Eden forecast.. fresh SW - offshore - winds and easing surf from 8-10ft!).

Otherwise there’s simply nothing more than small, choppy open beaches likely across the broader Victorian coastline for the next few days and beyond.

Next week (Feb 2 onwards)

Still nothing major on the charts for Victorian surfers. As I mentioned on Tuesday, a couple of fronts are expected to squeak through the eastern periphery of our southern swell window - although this progression has been pulled back a day (now Sun/Mon/Tues) and it looks like it’ll be even further east - so definitely outside of our swell window.

Elsewhere, the large blocking high in the Bight looks like it’ll remain a feature for some time, which will maintain small probably until next weekend as a minimum, with local winds expected to vary between the south and the east. So, there’ll probably be a few small windows of opportunity across exposed East Coast beaches (likely Wed/Thurs/Fri) but on the whole it’s rather forgettable.

The only area of interest for me is a pair of tropical systems way out east of Madagascar (Severe Tropical Cyclone Eunice, and Tropical Storm Diamondra), which are expected to track slowly south-east, and eventually become absorbed into the low latitude westerly flow beneath the continent.

Right now the models aren’t showing much for the long term, but these scenarios often have a habit of becoming rather dynamic - so I’d flag an outside possibility for a significant swell event sometime around next weekend. Otherwise, break out the fishing rod.

Let’s take another pass on Monday to see how the long term models are looking.