Victorian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 1st November)

Best Days: Thurs: solid though very inconsistent groundswell (very large on East Coast at times) with good early winds in Torquay; best suited to protected spots east of Melbourne. Fri/Sat: brief period of OK winds with smaller swells, best suited to Surf Coast. Sun: early light winds and a nice S/SW pulse. 

Recap: Tuesday’s large swell came in undersized across the Surf Coast, though 4-5ft sets still eventuated across the reefs and conditions with early NW winds tending variable into the afternoon. East of Melbourne saw much bigger surf at exposed beaches near 8ft, almost 8-10ft. Today wave heights have fallen back to 3ft+ and 5-6ft respectively, and early W/NW winds are now around to a moderate SW breeze. 

This week and weekend (Nov 2nd onwards)

*today’s notes will be brief as Craig’s away*

A cold front clipping the coast today will largely clear to the east on Thursday, leaving most coasts under a moderate SW flow. However, local topographical influences should steer this around to the W/NW across the Surf Coast for a few hours early morning.

At the same time, a new groundswell is expected to build across the coast, generated by an intense storm well SW of Western Australia over the weekend and earlier this week. In fact, a broad fetch of 50kt winds was detected by satellites and this should kick up large swell periods in excess of 18 seconds, which should appear at the Cape Sorell buoy this evening. 

The swell is expected to peak through the late morning and lunchtime period, so the morning will offer the best waves - the biggest sets will be very inconsistent, but very well lined up (much better than the last few days) and should reach 4-6ft across the Surf Coast reefs, and up to 8ft+ across the East Coast’s open beaches (best suited to shelterd corners). Expect long breaks between 'em though - this swell will have travelled many thousands of kilometres.

Note: my surf size estimation for Thursday is higher than our surf model is calling, mainly because I think it's underestimating the swell period (of around 15-16 seconds). However, keep in mind that these kinds of distant groundswells tend to produce the biggest and best waves at a handful of reefbreaks that efficiently focus the swell - so we won't see this size range at every beach and reef. 

A series of moderate-strength fronts will traverse the Southern Ocean below WA, SA and Tas from Thursday onwards, and this will push a modest SW change into Victorian coasts on Friday. We may see a brief period of W’ly winds in Torquay around dawn but for the most part expect moderate to fresh cross-onshore winds. 

Thursday’s swell will ease steadily into Friday, and new swell from these fronts won’t arrive until the afternoon, then holding through Saturday ahead of a minor peak Sunday morning originating from the final, strongest front in the succession.

Friday and Saturday should maintain around 3ft of inconsistent surf west of Melbourne, and 4-5ft+ East of Melbourne.  Saturday’s winds look to be generally light to moderate onshore in the wake of the change, though again early W/NW winds are possible in Torquay. 

Sunday morning should see a little more size - maybe some 3-4ft sets in Torquay, thanks to a little more south in the swell direction - and we’ll also be under a period of light variable winds as a weak high pushes across Bass Strait. So, Sunday morning is the pick of the weekend forecast period, though there’ll be reasonable waves both days.

Next week's blocking pattern its still on target, as is the potential for a strong storm to concurrently develop along the up-flank of a Long Wave Trough node, right on the eastern periphery of our swell window (across Tasmanian longitudes, see chart below).

This should deliver a gusty S’ly change through Monday and Tuesday, with the accompanying southerly swell - potentially quite solid - due around Tuesday and holding maybe into early Wednesday. However local conditions look pretty average at this time thanks to a persistent onshore airstream.

Looking further ahead and the blocking pattern will probably bring about a period of small surf through the end of next week and the following weekend. A couple of long range, long period swell sources will keep exposed beaches rideable but at this stage no great size is expected, and we’ll be heavily reliant on local winds for anything worthwhile.