Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 18th August)

Best Days: Later Saturday Surf Coast, Monday Surf Coast, exposed beaches Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday

Recap

Good fun waves across protected spots on the Surf Coast yesterday with a morning peak in W'ly groundswell under W/NW winds.

The swell eased off slowly through the afternoon, back further from 2-3ft this morning but with cleaner conditions across a wider range of locations including Phillip Island.

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

This weekend and next week (Aug 18 - 24)

Looking at the weekend as a whole and it's not looking too great.

Our current swell will continue to ease leaving small 2ft leftovers on the Surf Coast swell magnets with fresh W/NW winds, poor and choppy to the east.

The onshore change from a slow moving and strong storm pushing in from the west-southwest looks to be delayed a little and we're due to see winds hold from the W into the afternoon as some of the swell from the storms earlier stages fills in.

The low developed east of Heard Island through the middle of this week and generated a slow moving fetch of severe-gale W/SW winds through our western swell window, with it now weakening while approaching us.

Size wise we're looking at a late pulse of size, possibly reaching 3ft+ on the Surf Coast by dark with 6ft sets to the east, peaking on Sunday.

Unfortunately our strong onshore S/SW winds as the low pushes across us on Sunday are still due, with poor conditions and a mix of S/SW windswell coming in around 4-5ft on the Surf Coast and 6-8ft to the east.

The low is expected to move off fairly quickly to the east and with this we'll see another approaching front swinging winds back to the W/NW Monday.

A mix of easing W/SW and S/SW swells are due, dropping back from the 3ft range on the Surf Coast and 4-5ft to the east.

It looks like we'll see a low point in swell Tuesday morning with hardly any size left on the Surf Coast with N/NW tending N/NE breeze.

The exposed beaches to the east look best and some new W/SW groundswell from the the storm mentioned just above is due to fill in through the afternoon.

A tight and intense fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds are forecast, weakening as quickly as they devlop south of the country.

Still a good spike in size to 3ft on the sets by dark Tuesday is due on the Surf Coast, with 4-6ft sets to the east with that hopefully favourable breeze. We'll confirm this Monday. The swell is due to ease from a similar size on Wednesday with winds from the northern quadrant.

Longer term smallish and inconsistent levels of background W/SW groundswell from the south-east Indian Ocean are due into the end of the week and weekend, but winds are a little unsure as a weak mid-latitude low moves across the country. At this stage we're probably looking at favourable winds for locations east of Melbourne, but more on this Monday. Have a great weekend!