Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 1st April)

Best Days: Beaches from later morning tomorrow, Friday, Sunday and Monday protected spots

Recap

Good to great waves across selected breaks yesterday with a mix of new mid-period W/SW swell in the early morning and larger, stronger long-period SW groundswell filling in through the day, kicking to 5ft on the Surf Coast and 8ft on the Mornington Peninsula as winds tended variable into the afternoon.

Today the swell has eased slightly but conditions are good across most locations with 4-5ft sets on the Surf Coast magnets, 6-8ft to the east.

This week and weekend (Apr 2 – 5)

Looking at the coming days and as pointed out in Monday's notes, there's plenty of reinforcing swell on the cards for tomorrow and Friday, backing off into Saturday morning.

This afternoon a new W/SW groundswell is due across the coast, produced by a good fetch of W'ly gales under WA at the start of the week, while weaker W/SW-SW fetches trailing this will keep the coast active through Friday.

Size wise the Surf Coast should see 3ft+ waves tomorrow, easing slowly from 3ft Friday morning with 4-5ft+ waves on the Mornington Peninsula tomorrow, easing from 4-5ft Friday morning.

Unfortunately tomorrow conditions aren't looking too flash with a morning SE breeze, easing and tending N/NE later morning ahead of sea breezes. So if looking for a surf later morning to early afternoon looks to be the pick.

Friday is much better as we see persistent and freshening N'ly winds kick in, likely N/NW all day on the Surf Coast and N/NE to the east.

Moving into the weekend and we look at the intense mid-latitude low that's forecast to move in from the west, with it deepening as a quick moving node of the Long Wave Trough brings an upper cold pool across the south of the country.

It's now looking to be a mix of a strong low and follow up frontal system, with it being positioned more favourably for swell production across our coast but without as much wind as forecast on Monday.

The low will form in the Bight on Thursday evening, with a burst of unfavourably aligned fetch of SW gales generated on the edge of our western swell window early Friday, followed by a better aligned fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds.

Any swell from these developments isn't due until very late Saturday, with the rest of the day being small and only 1-2ft or so on the Surf Coast with strong NW tending W/NW winds. The models also diverge on the strength and positioning of this first burst with EC looking bigger and better than GFS.

The swell is likely to peak Sunday morning to 3-4ft or so on the Surf Coast, 6ft+ to the east, while a secondary projection of the low and a front in and across us during the day will bring more size into the afternoon and Monday morning.

It's hard to put a size on this with the model divergence but expect surf in the 6ft range on the Surf Coast, 8ft+ to the east.

Locally winds on Sunday will be strong but from the N/NW, shifting W/NW through the day and then W/NW early Monday before shifting S/SW.

We'll have to go over the expected sizes, local winds and timing of the swells again Friday so check back then.