Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 1st February)

Best Days: Tuesday east of Melbourne, possibly Friday morning both coasts, Saturday morning east of Melbourne

Recap

A good new SW groundswell filled in Saturday with generally clean conditions under variable winds, although a fresh onshore kicked in just on 8am across the Mornington Peninsula, creating poor conditions.

A reinforcing SW groundswell mixed in with a sneaky SE swell from a fetch of SE gales through Bass Strait provided good waves again across both coasts with variable tending E/NE winds on the Surf Coast and fresher all day N/NE winds east of Melbourne.

Today, yesterday's reinforcing SW groundswell has held in better than expected with fun surf in the 2-3ft range across exposed breaks on the Surf Coast and 3-5ft on the Mornington Peninsula with favourable variable winds again.

This week (Feb 2 - 5)

Tomorrow morning will be best east of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island with easing surf from the 3ft range, while the Surf Coast will see 1ft to possibly 2ft at swell magnets.

Light N/NE winds should create clean conditions across most regions before sea breezes kick in mid-afternoon.

Wednesday will be poor with tiny amounts of swell and a developing onshore change from the SW. Torquay may see an early W/NW'ly but there'll be no size at all.

This onshore change will be linked to a strong mid-latitude low, come frontal system edging in from the west, with a moderate sized W/SW groundswell due into late Wednesday and more so Thursday ahead of a reinforcing SW pulse Friday.

Late Wednesday/Thursday's pulse will be generated over the coming days as a deep and powerful mid-latitude low develops south of WA, aiming a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds just within our western swell window. The low will then weaken and push east towards us, generating weaker strong to gale-force winds in our western swell window.

The long-period acute W'ly swell energy is due later Wednesday, with better aligned energy peaking Thursday to 3-4ft across exposed breaks, with the possible bigger bomb at swell magnets. The Mornington Peninsula should see 6-8ft waves all day.

As the mid-latitude low weakens and drifts south-east a front firing up on its tail is expected to generate a fetch of SW gales through our south-western swell window, generating a reinforcing SW groundswell for Friday, peaking through the afternoon. The Surf Coast should persist in the 3ft range on the sets, with 5-6ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula, easing back from 2-3ft and 4-6ft respectively Saturday.

Unfortunately winds on Thursday will be poor with a fresh and gusty S'ly on Thursday, while Friday is tricky with the axis of a surface trough sitting to our east, possibly resulting in variable winds across the region. If not SE winds are more than likely, so check back here Wednesday for an update on this.

This weekend onwards (Feb 6 onwards)

As the SW swell eases Saturday, the surface trough is expected to drift back to the west, resulting in winds swinging E/NE to NE, persisting Sunday.

Longer term a blocking high over the Bight will deflect any major swell generating systems away from us resulting in small surf with E/SE winds next week. More on this Wednesday.