Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 3rd June)

Best Days: Both coasts Friday morning, beaches into the afternoon, selected beaches Saturday and Sunday morning

Recap

Poor conditions Saturday with a bit of S/SW swell left in the mix, easing from 3ft on the sets on the Surf Coast, down from a cleaner and smaller 2ft on Sunday morning. The Mornington Peninsula was poor all weekend.

Today a deep, cold and deepening low moving across us has brought strong to gale-force onshore winds and large stormy waves to all locations but with no real quality.

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This week and weekend (Jun 4 - 9)

The strong low that's moved across us and is starting to dumping snow on the mountains and will bring torrential rain to Gippsland. It will continue moving slowly north up the NSW coast over the coming days, with tomorrow remaining poor and onshore with strong but easing S/SE winds and moderate levels of easing S'ly windswell.

Winds should shift more SW on Wednesday but with no size or power left to the swell. We may see an early W'ly on the Surf Coast but it will be tiny and weak.

Into Wednesday afternoon a small increase in long-period SW groundswell is due, generated by a quick burst of gale to severe-gale W'ly winds on the polar shelf, south of WA this morning. No major size is due off this fetch, but the Surf Coast should kick to 2ft+, with 3-4ft sets on the Mornington Peninsula but with that SW breeze.

The swell is expected to ease Thursday morning from 2ft and 3ft+ respectively with fresh SW winds, likely W'ly early on the Surf Coast. A new pulse of SW groundswell is due to fill in top of the easing swell though, generated by a very intense but late forming low south-west of us on Wednesday.

An unfavourably aligned fetch of W/NW gales will be closely followed by gale to severe-gale W/SW winds in our southern swell window, producing a SW tending S/SW groundswell for Thursday afternoon, easing Friday.

The Surf Coast should build to 3ft or so into the afternoon with 4-5ft sets to the east, easing from 2-3ft and 4ft+ Friday morning with better variable tending locally offshore morning winds, tending N/NE into the afternoon. This looks like the best day to surf with the exposed beaches seeing the most size and power.

Following this the storm track will remain unfavourably aligned for us, with strong frontal systems tracking south-east towards the polar shelf from west of Western Australia, perpendicular through our swell window.

One such system is due to generate a short burst of severe-gale to storm-force W'ly winds in our swell window, producing a small long-period W/SW groundswell pulse for Saturday.

Winds will be gusty from the N'th but just OK for exposed beaches, with sets hopefully to 3ft (we'll have to confirm this through the week looking at the evolution of the fetch), while the Surf Coast doesn't look to top 1-2ft.

The swell looks to ease Sunday as winds persist from the N'th, with the current blocking pattern due to break down into early next week. With this we should see stronger and more favourably aligned Southern Ocean storms developing in our western swell window, producing increasing surf from Tuesday next wee, but more on this Wednesday.