Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 20th August)

Best Days: Keen surfers tomorrow afternoon Surf Coast, Wednesday Surf Coast - east of Melbourne into the afternoon, exposed beaches Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings east of Melbourne

Recap

The weekend played out pretty much to script with small leftover amounts of swell on the Surf Coast Saturday morning, building into the afternoon with winds from the W-W/SW favouring protected spots late.

Sunday was poor with a solid mix of W/SW groundswell and S/SW windswell along with strong onshore S/SW winds.

This morning the swells have dropped back rapidly with the quick movement of the swell producing low off to the east, but conditions are much cleaner with a light offshore wind and 3ft leftovers on the Surf Coast, bumpy and 4-6ft to the east.

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This week and weekend (Aug 21 - 26)

We've got an upgrade in swell due tomorrow with an earlier arrival time as well. In the wake of the weekend's mid-latitude low, a small and intense low developed south of WA, and generated a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds through our south-western swell window.

The low is currently weakening but will continue to generate W/SW gales while projecting towards, and then under Tassie this evening.

A small burst of pre-frontal W/NW winds ahead of the low pushing through today is due to produce a small weak W/SW swell for tomorrow morning ahead of the groundswell proper into the afternoon.

The Surf Coast looks to come in at a small and weak 2ft+ across magnets with a W/NW breeze and bumpy 3-4ft waves to the east with W-W/SW winds. The swell should kick in strongly late morning and reach an easy 4ft on the Surf Coast (likely 5ft sets at magnets) and 6ft to likely 8ft on the Mornington Peninsula.

Winds will unfortunately swing W/SW-SW around midday on the Surf Coast, creating bumpy average though workable conditions into the afternoon.

Come Wednesday the swell will be on the ease but winds will swing back offshore, though without any major strength. As a result conditions will likely still be a bit lumpy and not totally lined up across the Surf Coast but clean with easing 3-4ft sets, 6ft on the Mornington Peninsula.

We'll likely see the Mornington Peninsula improving into the afternoon as well as the swell continues to ease and winds tend light N/NE.

Thursday will be super clean on the beaches with a moderate to fresh N/NE breeze, though smaller swell back to 3-4ft, only 2ft max or so on the Surf Coast magnets.

As touched on in Friday's update, the rest of the week we'll see distant and inconsistent long-range W/SW groundswells from the southern and south-east Indian Ocean.

The first will be large in WA, produced by a strong polar storm that developed west of Heard Island, but by the time it reaches us it will be super inconsistent and much smaller.

The long-period forerunners are due to arrive through Thursday but the swell isn't expected to peak until Friday.

We're looking at very inconsistent 3ft+ sets on the Surf Coast magnets and 4-6ft waves to the east with long long waits between sets.

The only issue are the local winds, with a mid-latitude low moving in across the centre of the country (bringing some much needed rain to the East Coast by the weekend) producing light E/NE tending fresh SE winds.

The swell is due to ease through Saturday but a reinforcing new pulse of W/SW energy from a slightly closer source is expected to fill in, keeping surf in the 3ft range hitting the Surf Coast and 4-6ft sets to the east.

Winds look similar to Friday on Saturday and best for locations east of Melbourne, while Sunday we may see a touch more size and energy but with variable tending S/SE winds. More on this Wednesday.