Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 30th March)

Best Days: Tuesday, Wednesday AM, Thursday AM, Friday

Recap

Offshore winds for the beaches and a good swell for exposed breaks, pulsing into Saturday afternoon with a new SW groundswell and sets to 4-5ft on the Mornington Peninsula, dropping back into yesterday morning with stronger offshores.

Today we've got a low point in swell and clean conditions for the Surf Coast but slow 1-2ft sets.

This week and weekend (Mar 31 – Apr 5)

We've got a very active week of swells and waves across the state, with a series of strong polar and Southern Ocean storms projecting through our swell windows from the weekend through until tomorrow evening.

Firstly, we look at our long-period and inconsistent but strong SW groundswell due into tomorrow afternoon. This was generated over the weekend by a significant polar low that formed east of Heard Island with a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds projected through our far south-western swell window.

The low has since weakened with a mid-latitude front spawning off the low moving in yesterday through the Bight. We should see a small kick in mid-period W/SW swell for tomorrow morning from the mid-latitude front coming in at 2-3ft on the Surf Coast swell magnets, 5ft+ to the east, while the long-period energy is due to arrive into the afternoon, building further to 4-5ft and 6-8ft respectively by late in the day.

Looking at local conditions and an early W/NW breeze will shift N/NW through the morning and then variable into the afternoon.

As talked about last week, follow up frontal activity through the Southern Ocean will soften the easing trend through the rest of the week with a couple of good reinforcing swells on the cards for Wednesday afternoon and then Friday.

Wednesday's will be from the W/SW, generated by a good fetch of W'ly gales moving in south of WA this morning. Tomorrow afternoon's SW groundswell should ease back from the 4ft range on the Surf Coast, 6ft+ to the east with the reinforcing W/SW groundswell maintaining 3-4ft and 6ft surf respectively into the afternoon.

Thursday looks a touch smaller and back to 3ft+ and 4-5ft+ respectively, with Friday hanging around 3ft on the Surf Coast magnets, 4-5ft to the east, dropping into Saturday.

Locally winds look favourable each morning, light NE-N/NE on Wednesday ahead of SE sea breezes, light NE Thursday morning with afternoon sea breezes and straight and fresher N'ly Friday, remaining so most of the day.

Saturday will be average with strong N/NW tending W/NW winds as a deep and intense mid-latitude low moves in slowly from the west.

At this stage the models diverge on the position and movement east of this low, with EC having it quicker and further south bringing a windy and raw increase in large swell through Sunday, while GFS has it further north and slower resulting in no real swell until Monday.

In any case there's no real quality associated with this close-range swell, but we'll have a closer look at this Wednesday.