Victorian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 13th March)

Best Days: Thurs/Fri: fun easing, then reinforcing surf with light winds at most coasts, solid east of Melbourne. Sat onwards: extended period of E'ly winds (until next Friday?) with initially smaller weekend swells pulsing nicely from Mon onwards. 

Recap: Building swells on Tuesday were accompanied by an early window of W/NW winds ahead of freshening SW winds; morning size was around the 3ft mark in Torquay with bigger surf east of Melbourne. A very large swell build rapidly overnight, with peak swell periods reaching 18 seconds at the Cape Sorell and Pt Nepean wave buoys. It appears the swell peaked a few hours before midnight at Cape Sorell and a few hours before dawn at Pt Nepean, though we saw occasional 6ft+ sets early morning across the Surf Coast ahead of a steady easing trend throughout the day. Winds have been mainly light so conditions have been reasonably good, though not perfect due to the absence of a synoptic offshore wind.  

This week (Mar 14 - 15)

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We’ve got a light pressure pattern across the coast for the rest of the week, so the mornings are looking clean-ish with light variable winds ahead of afternoon sea breezes. 

Today’s swell is already easing steadily and will lose a little more size overnight into Thursday, where we should see early, inconsistent 3ft+ sets ease to 2-3ft throughout the day. Expect a little more size east of Melbourne - somewhere in the 5-6ft range across open beaches, easing to 3-5ft. There won’t be quite enough size for protected spots like Western Port though.

A small cut-off low approaching from the west is expected to renew swell into Friday, though the models have slightly weakened it since Monday’s notes were prepared. We should see the Surf Coast rebound back up to an inconsistent 3ft during the day (possibly undersized early), with open beaches east of Melbourne rebuilding back to 4-5ft+ by the afternoon. There should be fun waves at most beaches ahead of the sea breeze.

This weekend (Mar 16 - 17)

The weekend outlook is fairly steady from a swell point of view - mainly down, from whatever reinforcement we pick up on Friday. 

Regardless, local winds will mainly favour the open beaches east of Melbourne, as a broad ridge of high pressure to the south-west directs mainly E’ly winds across the northern Bass Strait region. We may see localised periods of light variable winds (mainly around Torquay and Bellarine Peninsula) but west and east from here will see greater influence from the synoptic flow. Even if the wind remains light in strength, there’ll be a regional easterly wobble through the lineup.

Size wise, we’re looking at 2ft+ sets of residual groundswell west of Melbourne Saturday easing to 1ft on Sunday. We may however see some building SE windswell here into the 2ft range though quality won’t be particularly high.

East of Melbourne should ease from around 3-4ft+ to 2-3ft over both days, and conditions are looking very good for the beachies. This will be your best option for the weekend. 

Next week (Mar 18 onwards)


A blocking synoptic pattern will maintain E’ly winds across the region for most of next week, so it’s looking like an extended period of poor surf conditions for Torquay - but great opportunities for the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island. 

A seemingly endless supply of reasonably strong Southern Ocean lows will move track parallel to the ice shelf all week, supplying pulse groundswell for our region.

Size wise we’re looking at internittent 2ft, almost 2-3ft surf west of Melbourne all week (shame about the local winds!) but better surf around 4-5ft range at open beaches east of Melbourne. Embedded pulses within this pattern (currently late Mon/Tues, Fri and Sun) should punch another foot or so higher than this too.

More on this in Friday’s update.