Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 28th February)

Best Days: Saturday morning

Recap

Fun waves across swell magnets yesterday with 2-3ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula and a couple of 2ft'ers on the Surf Coast beaches.

This morning the swell was a touch smaller again with less consistent 2ft+ waves on the Mornington Peninsula and 1-1.5ft waves on the Surf Coast with early offshores, though winds have already started to shift.

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This week and weekend (Mar 1- 4)

This afternoon's W/NW change will be linked to a weakening mid-latitude low moving in from South Australia, bringing poor SW winds tomorrow and a small weak increase in windswell, with some stronger groundswell into the afternoon.

The windswell only looks to be around 2ft+ on the Surf Coast through the morning and 4ft on the Mornington Peninsula, with the groundswell kicking to a stronger 3ft and 4-5ft respectively into the afternoon.

This groundswell has been generated by a weakening polar storm pushing east-northeast under the country the last couple of days (currently weakening west-southwest of Tassie).

We should hold a similar size into Friday across both coasts, though winds will remain less than ideal. Conditions should be cleaner with a light to moderate SE'ly for most of the morning, freshening into the afternoon, but Saturday is the day to surf.

Some less consistent but more powerful long-period SW groundswell will peak through the morning, generated by the strongest earliest stages of the polar storm in the Heard Island region over the weekend.

While less consistent we should still surf in the 3ft range across the Surf Coast with 4-5ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula and an approaching trough will bring N/NE tending NW winds ahead of a late afternoon W/SW change. This should create plenty of options for a surf across both regions.

This change will bring poor conditions Sunday with S/SW winds and a small increase in weak windswell from a weak fetch of SW winds trailing the change.

The windswell is due to peak Monday but only to 2-3ft on the Surf Coast and 3-5ft on the Mornington Peninsula but with gusty S'ly winds.

Into the rest of the week, the outlook is poor with persistent E/SE winds due along with no decent groundswell. This will be related to a strong high sitting in the Bight, squeezed by a surface trough stalling off the southern NSW coast. Therefore make the most of Saturday.