Fun week on the Surf Coast, super inconsistent but getting bigger into the weekend
Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 22nd June)
Best Days: Wednesday afternoon Surf Coast, Thursday morning Surf Coast, Friday afternoon Surf Coast, Saturday and Sunday Surf Coast
Recap
A large, strong but very inconsistent SW groundswell came in as expected Saturday morning with solid sets reported between 5ft and 8ft across the Surf Coast depending on location, along with larger bombs on the Mornington Peninsula.
Variable winds did eventuate creating glassy and workable conditions for most of the day, besides a brief fresh onshore around the middle of the day.
Sunday was excellent with an easing swell from 3-4ft on the Surf Coast and 6ft to occasionally 8ft on the Mornington Peninsula under fresher northerly winds.
A reinforcing S/SW groundswell also filled in through the afternoon, keeping the surf up before easing back from 2-3ft and 4ft on the Mornington Peninsula.
This week and weekend (Jun 23 – 28)
The swell will bottom out into tomorrow morning, with the Mornington Peninsula the only option for a wave, with a slow 1ft to maybe 2ft under fresh to strong N'ly winds.
Our new SW groundswell for Wednesday is still on track with a distant polar low generating a fetch of SW gales while pushing slowly east over the weekend. The Surf Coast should build to an inconsistent 3-4ft through the afternoon, with 6ft+ sets on the Mornington Peninsula under fresh to strong N/NW tending W/NW winds.
The swell should then ease through Thursday under W/SW winds, although the Surf Coast should see a morning W/NW'ly.
From Friday we'll see tricky and inconsistent levels of long-range W/SW groundswell emanating from one of the largest and broadest polar frontal progressions firing up in the Indian Ocean for some time.
Already a fetch of 50-60kt winds have been registered in our far far swell window just west of Heard Island, with this due to be over taken by a broader and more elongated fetch of severe-gale W/SW winds over the coming days.
The progression as a whole will slowly move east through the second half of the week, which is more favourable for us, with the frontal activity weakening but pushing under the Bight from Friday afternoon.
What will result is initially some very inconsistent long-period W/SW groundswell arriving late in the day Friday and showing more size through Saturday ahead of a secondary stronger and more consistent pulse through Sunday (peaking into the afternoon).
On Friday though there should also be some closer-range W/SW swell from patchy pre-frontal W/NW winds ahead of the stronger activity.
Size wise the Surf Coast should build to a small and inconsistent 2-3ft later Friday and 4-6ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula under NW winds.
Saturday should then offer better but really inconsistent 3-4ft sets across swell magnets on the Surf Coast (with the rare bigger bomb possible into the afternoon) and 6ft+ sets on the Mornington Peninsula. Winds will continue to be favourable for the Surf Coast and light from the NW, tending W/NW through the afternoon.
Sunday will provide the most size and consistency but morning NW winds look to swing W/SW through the day, as the swell peaks, creating bumpy conditions. The Surf Coast is due to build to a very inconsistent 4-5ft with 6ft bombs at swell magnets and 6-8ft+ on the Mornington Peninsula.
A reinforcing W/SW groundswell is due overnight Sunday (from pre-frontal W/NW gales), keeping similar sets hitting both coasts early Monday under favourable W/NW winds on the Surf Coast, and then another better groundswell is on the cards for Tuesday, but we'll have a closer look at this on Wednesday.
Comments
Thanks Craig.
Is Phillip Island still forecasted to be N/NW winds and 3-4 ft this Wednesday? Or..will the Surf Coast be better? Trying to work out which way to head on my day off.
Thank you, Matt
Building swell and winds holding from the N/NW until probably 11am-12pm, so that mid-late morning session is probably the pick.
How strong is the wind over the weekend
Not too strong, probably fresh to strong but easing NW Saturday and then fresh but easing W/NW Sunday.
Hi Crag, do you think the wind will be more easy on Saturday or Sunday?
Who's your tip for race 5 at Flemington on Saturday
Haha.
Hope your getting paid extra for this Craig!
Craig, what is it with spoon feeding every available drip of information to every wanna be surfer this side of Preston. I mean can't you leave these wankers to their own devices and at least give the local lads one weekend free of their Melbourne counterparts? Or at least fake a weekend forecast every now and then so that those of us who know how to read a weather map may be rewarded for a change.
What would you call last Saturday Justo ?!?
Craig wants Cash to " throw the forecast " , that an or apparently good race tips ;-)
Last Thursday , i cancelled a large cheque I was going to send to Roy , and instead sent it to SN HQ . Voila , winds look " funky " in that days forecast . = 10-15 guys outset winki for 4-5 hours in the am . !
I think they might even be exploring direct money transfers .
I'd call last Saturday shit. Craig was spot on with his forecast again and provided a thread of comments to the peanut gallery when they asked. Now I'm not really a gambling man and if you want to play a round of poker with Flipper the dolphin and Sam the sea lion that's your prerogative and good luck to you. Craig should just start giving people useful advice, like if you want to know what the surfs doing before driving down, why doesn't he suggest checking it from the top of the Eureka sky deck with a good set of binoculars. You know, get people back into the habit of a good ol surf check with your own eyes rather than looking at a screen and asking bucko craig
Casey, you've lost the plot mate
Mr Case, not everyone is lucky enough to live at Torcool or wherever on the coast. I live and work in Melbourne and get to surf only on weekends, unless I sacrifice several hundred dollars to take a day off (no work, no pay). Expensive surf trip!
So I have to battle the weekend crowds. But away from the crowd magnets I can usually get a good uncrowded surf, even though I still often find myself out at Winki if I head west instead of east.
However, I do agree somewhat on your initial sentiment ("spoon feeding every available drip of information"). I've built up my store of knowledge through 35+ years' of reading weather maps, poring over BOM charts & forecasts, using experience from dud trips and scoring big-time trips. Newbies should learn the same hard way, doing their own research, reading Craig's quite detailed notes, looking at the plethora of wind/tide/swell forecasting tools and maps.
Maybe it's the "I want it, and I want it now" generation who seem to be too lazy or impatient (or stupid?) to do something themselves and rely on the internet to provide immediate answers.
So yes, Craig, please stop spoonfeeding these people who are too lazy to do their own research.
You guys are fried some people arent 45 years old and been reading maps and weather charts all there lives so sometimes people need some help asking questions about the surf. Mpow89 is asking a question about Phillip Island which isn't mentioned in the forcast notes so you blokes don't need to have a go at people for asking questions that is why there is a comment section on these forcast notes so people can ask questions. It takes Craigo 1 minute to respond so there shouldn't be such a problem. Thanks for telling us your life story crip it was very insitful and interesting Craig isn't spoon feeding anyone so calm down and just go surfing seriously
You guys are fried some people arent 45 years old and been reading maps and weather charts all there lives so sometimes people need some help asking questions about the surf. Mpow89 is asking a question about Phillip Island which isn't mentioned in the forcast notes so you blokes don't need to have a go at people for asking questions that is why there is a comment section on these forcast notes so people can ask questions. It takes Craigo 1 minute to respond so there shouldn't be such a problem. Thanks for telling us your life story crip it was very insitful and interesting Craig isn't spoon feeding anyone so calm down and just go surfing seriously
You guys are fried some people arent 45 years old and been reading maps and weather charts all there lives so sometimes people need some help asking questions about the surf. Mpow89 is asking a question about Phillip Island which isn't mentioned in the forcast notes so you blokes don't need to have a go at people for asking questions that is why there is a comment section on these forcast notes so people can ask questions. It takes Craigo 1 minute to respond so there shouldn't be such a problem. Thanks for telling us your life story crip it was very insitful and interesting Craig isn't spoon feeding anyone so calm down and just go surfing seriously
Nick.F
You seem to ask ol Craig a lot of questions yourself bud, in fact the way your going Craig ol boy is gonna need a ladle soon.
Why all the questions then???? If all you wanna do is 'go surfing' why ask...just go
If thats not being spoon fed then what is
You young guys actually have all this info at your disposal but I think it goes in one ear, you use it for an instant, and then out the other ear it goes.
When me an me mates were young and dumb like Nick F... and his mates we just used to go down the coast, mostly the same piece of coast, just cause we loved it ,to get out in the country. Many weekend of onshore and no swell and many going off, point is I reckon your missing out, you try to cherry pick the best conditions but never surf one break enough to get to know it or the guys who surf it, so in the end you might get to surf some waves in the best conditions but you'll never get the best waves.
Don't blame Craig, he's in business it's called customer service.
Spot on Morris. All of the above.
Ride the horse and cart down for the weekend did ya Morris?
Just jokes morris
Hitch hiked, great way to meet broad cross section of people
Morris did?
We all did, all the young ones of that era goofy, a few dissappeared, but shit happens
Sharp little door knob aren't ya goofy
I'm fucking with ya Shaun/Morris/whoever
hey Goofy , things didn't change from Shauns days till 15 years ago .
people stopped going along the coast to some place new for weekend trips .
instead like mozzies to the light they started " tripping " in the cities .
I too hitch hiked , and at some stage in my early twenties spent more time sleeping in my car than my own bed .
before access to further a field synoptics were available you used to plan your weeks on what the wind was doing . Swell was just bonus . Atleast it gave you grounding in working out the patterns . Even clouds held the keys to good waves / forecasting . SO you got to know plenty of different spots and conditions . When computers made international charts ( rather hard to access ) reasonably accessible then you could plan beyond a few days . Although I was lucky that I saw the end of he era Shaun / sorry I mean Morris talks of . Guys then worked on the timing of frontal patterns , seasonal patterns etcetera , not unlike how we now will time paddling out on lulls . Surfing is very cyclical , I fee so many of these guys are really detached from what surfing is . end old cunt rant .
People still hitchhike
. In year 11 myself and a mate hitchhiked to Byron over Xmas.
Surf was shit but I got a 3some with two hotties that made it worth while.. Best Xmas I ever had
Not sure how old you are Southey but I'm guessing it's less than 10 years older than me? I'm 32
I don't believe you goofy, you'll need to put up a link of the video on youtube as proof, we all know with you youngun's it didn't happen if you didn't post on youtube.
57
You don't want to see that
Are u suggesting you tapped the ugly step sisters ?!
When I read it I imagined young Goofy in shared room at a backpackers having the time of his life with 2 swiss miss's(blonde of course)
Now I can only imagine it was in a back ally behind a pub with 2 muscle bound Dutch boys, Goofy left foot forward in the pigdog stance apparently having the time of his life, not that there is anything wrong with THAT! :))
Pigdog!
Pfft you Shaun of all people should know there's no grabbing the rail in that situation.
:)))))
Old cunt, you have no right to call your self an old cunt yet
rants by nature are often delivered to someone younger . anyone younger than 25 will always think anyone over 30 is an old cunt . so the rant doesn't necessarily have to come from an old cunt , but it helps that the story involves anything that happened close to 20 years ago . are u home yet , or are you milling around to take on Uppity at the bommie .
Justin case I ask questions because I don't see the problem with asking questions because there is actually a comments section so I don't see why you have a problem with people asking Craig questions. Not everyone is as smart as you and can read weather charts and maps to work out the conditions because from your comments you seem like a very smart person. I told crip to just 'go surfing' instead of getting annoyed at people asking questions. And I do 'go surfing' but I like to ask questions about the conditions before I go and you can say it's spoon feeding or spin it any way you want but the way I see it, I am asking a question and all it takes is 1 minute for Craig to respond so I don't see why you get so annoyed about people asking questions
Nick, if you bump into me at the end of the point, ask me the best way to paddle out de I'll set ya straight ;)
Southy
Im on the way home, stopped off at morris's place in Gippsland, using his computer, it's confusing goofy he can't tell us apart
Your a confusing man
I reckon you should hang at Morris's , that swell should swing around into there and pump all next week !!! All roads lead to seaspray .
Yeah, I don't know southy. If the swell has enough westerly in it then it will be good around this way after the the swell has gone past the coast west wilsons promontory and refracts of the west coast of Flinders island, the banks on the east coast of the prom are very nice at the moment. The plan is to go for a bit of a road trip with morris back to the western districts get waves on the way there and then again on the way back and meet the flinders backwash in gippy later on in the week.
Shaun you have lost the plot
hey Nick if we've lost the plot , then why the fuck do you keep asking questions off us . ( i'm loosely putting Craig in this group ) , I know he really has to be polite , but I reckon your probably atleast frustrating him . This site is a two way street , most people contribute and also query .
I'm not privy [ fuck off uplift , i'll use that word when and where I like ;-) ] to whether your a pro member , but I reckon if you aren't then you should be ..........$$$
Asking questions off "us" when have I been asking you questions I just ask some questions to Craig when I don't understand something or want to no more about something I don't see what the problem is with asking questions. And if "we've" lost the plot I wasn't talking to you or whoever " we've" is I was just saying that to Shaun. Are you part of some special group on swellnet southey you has authority over everyone and can choose to swear when they like? Seriously get back to reading those weather maps
Dear Little Nicky, we are all very special in our own little world, even you can be.
If loosing the plot is not living in a city relying on surf forecast sites so I can arrange my schedule , then yes I have lost the plot. The best site I have found is a quick walk to the beach to watch the sunrise and go from there.:)
Now to get back on thread I have a serious Question for Craig, or maybe southy might want to have a go at it, but please southy in english not meteorese, in simple terms we can all understand.
Why is there only good conditions , swell and wind on weekends?
I alluded to this a few weeks ago in some thread .
Swells producing storms tend get stuck some times
In cyclical patterns . This is no different , as Sat 's locally have been
The day of the week in the last few months. .
So that's something that Nick F and his band of merry weekend
Warriors should be happy about . Meanwhile blokes like yourself are
starving from lack of mid week empty epic solitude . I'll let you know
When this pattern is breaking down , but ATM it looks Intrenched for the
see able future. . I reckon mid July something will shift . It is often a broad climate
Driven /seasonal pattern .
Yeah there are weekly cycles that pop up at time to time, and I remember this swell back in Uni days.
There was a period where every Thursday (or Tuesday, can't remember) when the swell was up and winds offshore and I had no Uni commitments at all. Surfed with the same guys down the coast every time and this went on for a month or two.
Similar in summer as well when you get howling SE winds across South Oz only be broken by an incoming trough and NE winds, almost weekly and then back to the SE slop.
It takes BIG MEN to go off topic and BULLY a school kid from the big smoke, week after week, on the net. WELL DONE GUYS! I hope to see all involved doing seal impersonations on the button or on the rocks at the key hole. good luck gentleman. your time will come.
Nick this means you too. Craig just interprets the info from computer modeling set by meteorology sites. a few Clicks on the bom website (for example) is easier than typing a thousand questions! Fuck, Its like giving the dogs a bone!
all whilst Craig kicks back and collects the paycheck and only makes an appearance when its pumping and then puts up pics for weeks afterwards, for all too see.
Chill out guys after all "Its not where your from, Its how you come"! we can all do with some improvement...
Fuck, I need to get a job. I'm becoming "one of them!" :(
I think it's time to introduce the 8 day working week.
Blackdog, brother... simmer down man
lol. and just for the record : the goosebumps on my gonads are what tells me if a swell is cumming. And no Nick you cant have a look!
Ahh well I'm geting in for one. Ill leave you lady's to it.