Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 2nd March)

Best Days: Thursday and Friday morning on the beaches

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Inconsistent SW groundswell tomorrow with mod-fresh E/NE winds ahead of mid-late afternoon E/SE-SE sea breezes
• Easing SW swell Fri with light-mod NE tending S/SE winds
• Strengthening S/SW winds Sat (possibly light in the AM), strong S tending SE on Sun with a mix of localised windswell and inconsistent SW groundswell
• Reinforcing mid-period SW swell Mon easing Tue with gusty SE winds Mon, strong S Tue
• Moderate sized SW groundswell Wed and Thu with gusty E/SE winds Wed and morning E/NE winds Thu

Recap

Good surf across all locations yesterday with a building south-west swell, mixed in with some south-east windswell energy, building to an easy 3ft on the Surf Coast with variable winds and 4-5ft to the east.

The swell has backed off a touch this morning but was still coming in at 3ft on the Surf Coast magnets, with 4ft sets to the east under a fresher E/NE breeze.

MP magic the morning

This week and next week (Mar 3 - 11)

The exposed beaches will continue to offer clean, fun surf into the end of the week with deteriorating conditions from the weekend as a deepening surface trough slides in from the west.

Looking at the coming days though, the swell will become less consistent tomorrow but should hold around 2ft to occasionally 3ft across the Surf Coast magnets and 4ft on the sets to the east. The source of this inconsistent swell was a strong but distant low at the end of the progression linked to yesterday's and today's waves.

Winds will be great for locations east of Melbourne with a moderate to fresh E/NE breeze ahead of late E/SE-SE sea breezes. A light to moderate NE offshore is due Friday morning ahead of afternoon sea breezes with easing, inconsistent sets from 2ft on the Surf Coast and 3ft to possibly 4ft on the Mornington Peninsula.

There might be window of variable winds early Saturday before the trough shifts in from the west but swell wise it'll be at a low point.

This trough will unfortunately spoil a fun SW groundswell that's due Sunday with strong S tending SE winds developing through Bass Strait as a low forms within it off the far southern NSW coast.

The strong S'ly winds will extend off Tasmania's West Coast kicking up a local, stormy windswell likely to 3-4ft on the Surf Coast and 4-5ft to the east.

Coming back to the SW groundswell and this is being generated today by a strong low that's currently pushing east of the Heard Island region. A fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds are being produced, with it due to slowly weaken and stall south-west of Western Australia tomorrow before sliding slowly east on the weekend.

This will generate an initial SW groundswell pulse for Sunday with persistent levels of smaller, mid-period surf through Monday, easing Tuesday. Size wise Sunday's swell looks to be around 3ft on the Surf Coast and 4-5ft to the east, back to 2-3ft and 3-5ft on Monday.

Gusty SE winds will continue to create poor surf on Monday with a shift back to strong S'ly winds due on Tuesday as another trough slides in from the west follow by a high.

Again this will spoil a moderate sized SW groundswell event Wednesday/Thursday, generated by a healthy frontal progression moving under the country on the weekend. Size wise 3-5ft surf is due on the Surf Coast and 6ft+ waves to the east but with strong E/SE winds on Wednesday, possibly shifting E/NE as the swell starts to ease on Thursday. We'll confirm this next update.