Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 1st June)

Best Days: Thursday morning both coasts, east of Melbourne Friday and Saturday mornings, both coasts Sunday (best to the east)

Recap

Small to tiny waves across the Surf Coast yesterday morning ahead of a slight lift in size through the afternoon as winds tended more easterly. The Mornington Peninsula was clean all day and the pick of the regions.

Today, the first day of winter and we've got easing small to tiny surf under local offshore winds again. A strong new long-range W/SW groundswell is due to kick later today, with the fore-runners to 18s just hitting Cape du Couedic (off Kangaroo Island) in South Australia. Afternoon E'ly winds will favour locations east of Melbourne as this swell kicks, but keep an eye on the surfcams.

This week and weekend (Jun 2 - 5)

The long-period fore-runners appearing on the CDC wave buoy off South Australia should hit Cape Sorell through today, with a late kick in size due before dark across our beaches. E'ly winds will favour protected spots east of Melbourne for the late session, but again keep an eye on the local surfcams.

This swell which impacted Western Australia yesterday should peak tomorrow morning with infrequent 3ft to occasionally 4ft sets across spots exposed to the westerly swell on the Surf Coast and 6ft to occasionally 8ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula.

Conditions are looking decent across both regions early with a variable tending local offshore breeze due, before tending E/NE and then SE into the afternoon.

The swell should then ease back through Friday from 3ft on the sets across the Surf Coast and 5-6ft on the Mornington Peninsula under E/NE winds, favouring locations east of Melbourne. SE sea breezes will again create average conditions into the afternoon.

The swell should continue to ease through Saturday as winds persist from the E/NE to E/SE, favouring the beaches east of Melbourne.

Into Sunday a new long-range W/SW groundswell pulse is due to fill in, generated by a very distant and north in latitude polar frontal progression that fired up north of Heard Island yesterday.

The swell off this system will be really inconsistent and not favourable for the Surf Coast with infrequent sets to 2ft developing through the day, and better 3-5ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula under favourable N'ly winds.

Next week onwards (Jun 6 onwards)

There's nothing too significant due into the start of next week besides small background levels of swell, but into the middle of the week we should see a moderate to large sized long-period W/SW groundswell filling in. This will be generated by a very strong, broad and long lived polar frontal progression south-west of WA, but we'll have a closer look at this Friday.