Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 4th December)

Best Days: Exposed beaches tomorrow, Surf Coast Sunday afternoon and most of Monday

Recap

The very large kick in S/SW groundswell seen into Wednesday afternoon and evening eased back into yesterday morning, though the Surf Coast reefs were still a consistent and chunky 6ft, 6-8ft to the east.

Conditions were clean but a touch lumpy and afternoon sea breezes added bumps as the swell continued to ease.

This morning we've still got 3ft sets on the Surf Coast swell magnets, clean in protected spots and bumpy 3-5ft surf to the east.

This weekend and week (Dec 5 - 11)

Moving into the weekend, we'll see the surf remaining small tomorrow, holding in size through the morning with a reinforcing mid-period SW swell pulse. This swell will fade from late morning with easing sets from 3ft to possibly 4ft on the Mornington Peninsula and 2ft on the Surf Coast.

The beaches will be clean though windy under a strong N/NE wind that will hold until late afternoon, shifting strong NW thereafter.

Looking at the deepening mid-latitude low under Western Australia through this afternoon and this system is now due to sit a touch further south and be much more favourable for swell production across the state.

The low will develop favourably for us tomorrow, with a great fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds now forecast to be projected east through our western swell window. The low will be slow moving with a couple of embedded fronts projecting burst of stronger winds towards us.

As the low moves across Tassie Sunday evening we'll continue to see a good fetch of S/SW gales aimed up through our southern swell window on the backside of the low, with the end result being a moderate moderate to large W/SW groundswell building Sunday, easing Monday ahead of a reinforcing S/SW pulse Tuesday.

Size wise the Surf Coast should build slowly Sunday from a weak 2-3ft in the morning to 3-4ft late afternoon with 4ft+ surf due Monday on the magnets (smaller and to 3ft in protected spots). The Mornington Peninsula should build to 5-6ft+ Sunday afternoon with 6ft to possibly 8ft sets on Monday.

Winds look to favour protected spots with a strong, persistent NW tending W/NW breeze Sunday, W/NW Monday ahead of a late afternoon shift to the W/SW-SW.

Tuesday unfortunately looks average as we fall on the backside of the low, resulting in fresh SW winds, though there'll be that new S/SW pulse with 3-4ft sets due across the Surf Coast all day, 6ft to the east.

It looks like we'll see winds revert back to the W/NW on Wednesday morning with smaller, easing 2-3ft sets on the Surf Coast.

Longer term, a high will move in slowly from the west next week, swinging winds S-SE and one final strong polar front will fire up in our swell window before things go quiet. A moderate sized S/SW swell is on the cards for late week, but beyond this, a positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM) event will see the westerly storm track contract to the poles, and weaken.

This will see the Southern Ocean become inactive, with nothing too significant at all on the cards for next week at least (small S/SW swells). More on this Monday. Have a great weekend!