Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 7th March)

Best Days: East of Melbourne Tuesday morning, dawn both coasts Wednesday morning, both coasts Friday morning and possible each morning over the weekend

Recap

Not the best weekend of waves across the Surf Coast with small wind affected surf both Saturday and Sunday, while the Mornington Peninsula saw improving conditions yesterday as winds tended more variable creating glassy fun sets in the 3ft range.

Today a good new SW groundswell has filled in, but conditions are poor across all regions with an early light onshore breeze which has since freshened from the S'th.

This week (Mar 7 onwards)

Today's increase in SW groundswell is the first of two, with a better pulse due through tomorrow, peaking into the afternoon.

This has been generated by a strong and slow moving polar frontal progression through the Southern Ocean the last few days. We should see the Surf Coast kick to 3-4ft through the day, with the odd bigger bomb likely at swell magnets, and 5-6ft+ on the Mornington Peninsula.

Conditions are dicey though and best in protected spots east of Melbourne with a moderate to fresh E/SE'ly across the Surf Coast and E/SE tending E/NE to the east, possibly tending more variable later morning before reverting back to the east.

The swell should hold well into Wednesday morning, and conditions will be clean across both coasts at dawn with local offshores, but a fresh onshore SW change is due around 8am, creating poor conditions for the rest of the day.

Onshore S/SE breezes are due to linger through Thursday along with a new pulse of S/SW groundswell. The source of this S/SW swell will be a small and intense mid-latitude low forming south-west of the Bight tomorrow afternoon, aiming a fetch of S/SW gales through our southern swell window into the evening and Wednesday.

Good 3ft+ sets are due across the Surf Coast again from this swell with 4-6ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula, better as it eases Friday from 2-3ft and 3-5ft respectively under light local offshore winds.

This weekend onwards (Mar 12 onwards)

A small new SW swell is due Saturday, produced by an unfavourably aligned pre-frontal fetch of W/NW winds in our far swell window. Conditions are looking a little dicey as well with a light onshore wind, that could tend variable (check back Wednesday for more on this), while later in the day and more so Sunday, a new long-range and inconsistent SW groundswell is due to fill in.

This groundswell has already started to be generated in our far far swell window, south-west of Heard Island by an intense polar low. A fetch of gale to severe-gale W/NW winds are being generated, with the low due to travel east while continuing to generate a W/SW fetch, weakening while projecting slightly towards WA Thursday.

An inconsistent but moderate sized long-period SW groundswell will result, building Sunday and peaking through the day to a good 3ft across the Surf Coast (with the odd bigger bomb likely at swell magnets likely) and 5-6ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula. Variable winds are on the cards again, but we'll have to look at this again Wednesday.