Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 27th January)

Best Days: Surf Coast tomorrow morning, Wednesday morning, exposed beaches Thursday

Recap

Easing surf Saturday and Sunday morning with good clean conditions across the Surf Coast each morning, and periods of favourable and variable breezes to the east through the early mornings and also day ahead of sea breezes, providing plenty of options for a surf.

Some new SW groundswell started to fill in through yesterday afternoon but we've seen stronger and great waves into this morning with a peak in size, coming in around 3-5ft across the Surf Coast, and 6ft to the east with light offshores ahead of a currently weak change owing to a trough moving in from the west.

This week and weekend (Jan 28 – Feb 2)

This morning we saw the first of our two pulses of SW groundswell due through this period, with tomorrow's coming in a little stronger but with a touch more west in direction.

The source of this run of swell was a stalling polar low south of WA since Friday last week, generating bursts of W/SW gales through our south-western swell window. The broadest and strongest fetch was generated over the weekend, on top an active sea state and seeing today's reported size, we should see moderate to large sized sets through tomorrow.

The Surf Coast magnets should come in at 4-5ft+ tomorrow morning (a touch smaller at other breaks) with the peak of the swell, 6ft to occasionally 8ft to the east, easing a touch into the afternoon but more noticeably through Wednesday with a drop in swell period and size.

Easing surf from 3ft+ is due Wednesday morning on the Surf Coast, 5ft to the east, smaller Thursday and dropping from 2ft and 3ft to possibly 4ft respectively.

Winds over the coming week are looking favourable for both coasts with a light morning offshore W/NW breeze tomorrow, (W/SW-SW east of Melbourne) giving into S/SE sea breezes. Wednesday looks favourable for both regions with more variable winds (tending NW on the Surf Coast), likely lumpy but workable to the east, remaining so until sea breezes kick in early afternoon.

Thursday is the day for the exposed beaches with a moderate to fresh N/NE offshore, holding all day as the swell fades, clean again Friday morning but the swell will be small, weak and easing from 2ft max on the Mornington Peninsula.

Saturday looks clean again through the morning but tiny as the swell bottoms out.

Moving into next week we're expected to see a series of not overly strong but broad fronts firing up in our western and south-western swell windows from the weekend, generating building levels of what at this stage looks to be mid-period SW swell through next week. Winds are still up in the air but look unfavourable for the beaches and better for protected breaks, but we'll have to review this Wednesday.