Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 30th March)

Best Days: Both coasts Saturday, early east of Melbourne Sunday, Surf Coast most of Sunday, dawn Monday Surf Coast, Tuesday morning Surf Coast, both coasts Wednesday morning

Recap

Tiny clean waves on the Surf Coast yesterday morning, increasing later in the day but average with moderate to fresh sea breezes. The Mornington Peninsula offered OK waves early with light winds and 2-3ft sets, average after lunch.

Today a good new W/SW groundswell has filled in with great conditions on the Surf Coast and surf in the 4ft range, larger to the east and workable in selected spots.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This weekend and next week (Mar 31 – Apr 6)

Today's W/SW groundswell will ease back through tomorrow, but a new reinforcing SW groundswell will fill in, produced by a stalling fetch of W/SW gales in our south-western swell window yesterday and today.

This should keep 4ft sets hitting swell magnets across the Surf Coast and 6ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula and winds are looking good for most locations. A variable tending locally offshore wind will create good conditions all morning and into the early afternoon before sea breezes kick in.

We'll see the swell ease back through Sunday from 3ft+ at magnets on the Surf Coast early and 4-5ft on the Mornington Peninsula under a light N/NW tending NW breeze, ahead of early-mid afternoon sea breezes. The Mornington Peninsula will likely see light N/NE winds during the morning.

Moving into Monday and we've had an upgrade in the swell, with one of the embedded fronts mentioned the last few updates expected to intensify significantly south-west of WA today.

We'll see a great fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds (even possibly storm-force) projected east through our western and then south-western swell window this evening and tomorrow, producing a moderate to large groundswell for Monday morning.

The Surf Coast should see 4-5ft+ surf across the Surf Coast (6ft sets magnets especially if we see those stor-force winds) with 6-8ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula, while a secondary vigorous system pushing in on the tail of this first embedded low will generate a similar sized reinforcing W/SW groundswell for late in the day and Tuesday morning.

Winds are an issue on Monday with a dawn W/NW breeze due to swing W/SW-SW with the secondary front pushing through, but Tuesday morning looks better with a morning W/NW breeze, swinging SW-S/SW through the day.

More variable winds are likely Wednesday morning with further pulses of swell on the cards, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!