Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 29th April)

Best Days: Surf Coast tomorrow, experienced surfers only protected spots Friday through Sunday, Tuesday

Recap

Monday's mix of swells remained a good and solid size into yesterday morning, easing from 4ft+ across the Surf Coast, 6ft+ to the east and with favourable winds all day as the swell became a little more manageable on the exposed beaches late in the day.

Today the swell has eased further with favourable winds for the beaches and good to great surf. A new W/SW groundswell should kick the Surf Coast magnets to 3ft to occasionally 4ft this afternoon and 5-6ft+ to the east but a W/SW-SW change will move through early afternoon, creating average conditions. Therefore make the most of this morning.

This week and weekend (Apr 30 – May 3)

This afternoon's W/SW groundswell will ease back into tomorrow with inconsistent and easing 3ft sets on the Surf Coast swell magnets, 4-5ft to the east and a deepening and stalling mid-latitude low south-west of us will bring strengthening NW winds. An embedded front moving around the low is likely to bring a W/SW change late afternoon, so surf before then. We're not likely to see any new swell from the low until Friday.

Now, looking at this dynamic and tricky low, it looks to actually play nice through Friday in that we'll see large levels of building S/SW groundswell with favourable winds for protected spots.

As it initially forms tomorrow, a fetch of strong to gale-force S'ly winds will be aimed towards South Australia, but be too west and out of our swell window.

As the day progresses though we'll see the low move slowly east, with a fetch of gale to severe-gale S/SW winds being projected up through our southern swell window tomorrow evening and through Friday. Storm-force winds are actually expected just out of our swell window Friday evening off the South Coast of Tassie. It'll be quite a significant storm due to its slow movement and sustained intensity.

This will generate a large and powerful increase in building S/SW groundswell through Friday and the stalling nature of the low will see strong and windy but workable W/NW winds through the morning, shifting W/SW mid-late afternoon.

It's tricky to nail down the exact sizes, but we're likely to see the Surf Coast building from 4-5ft in the morning, 6ft to possibly 8ft on the Mornington Peninsula, further to 8ft and 10ft+ respectively into the mid-late afternoon. It'll be one of the largest swell events for a while and I've split the middle between the intensity forecast by GFS and EC. If it goes GFS's way we'll see even larger surf.

There'll also be plenty of snow in the apline regions linked with a deep cold pool in the upper atmosphere and additional moisture sucked down from the north-west.

Saturday morning is likely to offer similar sized waves as the low removes slow moving into Friday evening with severe-gales continuing to be projected up and into us, easing slowly Saturday as the low moves gradually east.

Winds will only be favourable for protected spots though and only for the experienced with strong W/SW breezes, shifting SW through the day.

Sunday still looks large owing to S/SW gales continuing to be aimed through our swell window right up until Saturday afternoon. At this stage we're likely to still see 5-6ft sets on the Surf Coast, 6ft to occasionally 8ft to the east owing to the swell direction. Winds will remain poor and gusty from the W/SW though, possibly W'ly early for a period on the Surf Coast.

Into next week we'll see the swell take a more steady drop in size with lingering SW winds Monday, still great for the beaches Tuesday and out of the N'th as a high moves in from the west. Following this there's nothing significant until later in the week, but more on this Friday.