Large and windy for a couple of days, then a spell of small surf
Victorian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Monday 16th May)
Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)
- Large, building surf Tues with W/NW winds, very large kick mid-late a'noon
- Very large blustery surf Wed with W/SW winds
- Solid, easing surf with abating winds Thurs
- Light winds and smaller leftovers Fri
- E'lies for the weekend with small surf Sat, and a minor long period reinforcement Sun
Recap
Small clean surf on Saturday eased from 1-2ft on the Surf Coast and 3ft east of Melbourne. A minor new groundswell lifted surf size to a more defined (though inconsistent) 2ft in Torquay on Sunday, bigger near 3-4ft east of Melbourne, and conditions remain clean for longer than expected thanks to a sustained northerly breeze. Today wave heights have increased steadily through the day, with Torquay showing early 3ft sets but now pushing 4-5ft, almost 4-6ft across the reefs though strengthening NW winds have gone gusty W/NW thru’ W’ly (Cape Otway gusting 41kts).
This week (May 17 - 20)
So, here we are, on the cusp of a major winteresque swell (and weather) pattern.
Wave heights are trending steadily upwards at Cape Sorell, which is a good sign - as opposed to a J-curve, which often denotes an event of shorter duration. However a strong to gale force wind regime will remain in place for the next few days so you’re going to have to look for some shelter.
Asside from the obvious characteristics of this Southern Ocean progression, what I like most is its slow moving nature. The broadscale pattern is edging eastwards at a pace that’s allowing secondary fronts to wrap around the primary low, building further on the preceding activity, and this is creating a ‘capture fetch’ scenario that should help to boost wave heights above theoretical estimates.
And, we’re looking at a broad peak in size from late Tuesday through Wednesday - indeed, even as of Tuesday morning, the storm track will still be very active with a broad fetch of gales positioned some 1,200-1,500km upstream through the swell window (see below) which means surf size will remain elevated for a further 24-36 hours before the downwards trend really kicks in.
As for size, there’s really no evidence to change the forecast issued Friday, however we need to hone on the specifics relating to surf potential, as the strength and direction of the local wind will largely restrict surfable options.
Tuesday will see building size all day, probably starting off in the 4-6ft range across the Surf Coast (bigger 6-8ft sets at the swell magnets) but kicking in strongly mid-late afternoon with the arrival of a significant swell front: keep an eye out for a jump in peak swell periods at the Cape Sorell buoy (and then Pt Nepean, if it's online).
So, this could very well see the odd 8-10ft+ set push through the swell magnets late in the day. Of course, not all breaks will pick up this size range.
Winds should hold steady from the W/NW for most of Tuesday, fresh through the morning but reaching strong to gale force at times into the afternoon.
East of Melbourne will be even larger at exposed beaches so it’ll be an ideal day for sheltered spots.
Wednesday morning should see a similar size range as per late Tuesday, but with winds veering more to the W/SW before dawn. There is a chance for a brief, early period of W/NW winds west of Melbourne early morning but it probably won’t last long, and we are likely to see the development of a significant 'wobble' (can you call it that?) through the lineup thanks to overnight westerly gales through Bass Strait. Wave heights will start to trend down into the afternoon.
Rapidly easing swells and winds on Thursday will be accompanied by a general SW flow though again, we may see a brief period of W/NW winds throughout Torquay. However, surface conditions will probably retain a fair degree of Wednesday’s wobble, so keep your quality expectations low. Let’s peg size easing from 4-6ft to 3-5ft west of Melbourne, bigger to the east - again, another day for sheltered spots, though bear in mind the SW wind flow compared to W/NW and W’ly winds of the previous days.
And then by Friday we’ll see light winds and further easing swells around 3-4ft west of Melbourne, 4-6ft east of Melbourne.
This weekend (May 21 - 22)
The Southern Ocean storm track will go a little quiet over the coming days thanks to a major block inside our mid-range swell window, which means Friday’s easing trend will continue into Saturday.
Furthermore, winds will swing to the east under a dominant ridge of high pressure on Saturday, so it’s looking like an ideal day for the open beaches east of Melbourne, with size around 3-4ft at open beaches. West of Melbourne will be small in the 2ft range and the easterly breeze won’t be a great help. Size will continue to abate through the day.
Easterlies will persist into Sunday, but we’ll see a small reinforcing long period groundswell (18-20 seconds) make landfall during the morning, generated by a powerful low pressure system well SW of Western Australia over the coming days that looks to stall in its easterly track, thanks to the upstream block. Set waves all be extremely inconsistent but should rebuild back to 3-4ft east of Melbourne and 2ft west of Melbourne.
Next week (May 23 onwards)
There’s nothing of interest showing up in the long range charts at this stage.. so make the most of this week’s activity! Could be another extended period of small surf ahead.
See you Wednesday.
Comments
Thanks Ben, the much anticipated report!
Bells will have 20 in the line up and 200 on the cliff
Hey Ben - as the swell builds through Tuesday arvo into Wednesday will the swell direction become more S?
you'd hope so. currently missing much of the SC.
yeah - its been a fizzer so far
How long approx. Does it take for swell to travel from cape sorell to torquay ?
Roughly 6 hours I think
I think a ~14 second swell period is ~3 hours.
Has the omelette been over-egged?
Swells in there but I recon tide is swallowing most if it.. a high low and high in tbe middle of the day.
So no effigies are being prepared for burning?
I would think it would be showing more in WP if that was the case. Looks nothing out of the ordinary for this time of year on the cams
Swells definitely not there I reckon g-hound. Bells is an inconsistent 4-5 foot.
Going to have to rise substantially to reach the predicted heights.
Tend to agree.
Went for a walk by beach last night and got first inkling that swell had dropped from the day's waves, today it's got bigger again, but intermittent & doesn't seem as big as predicted.
Yeah not the 8/10 ft stuff.. but 4/5 pretty spot on. Could feel it wanted to be more but for that tide.. sn team said mid to late arvo. I guess we’ll see..
Oh yeah, very high tides around midday, look for erosion
I saw water rush over the wall and onto the grass at the front beach in Torquay. Never seen that before. Lots of sand erosion on that stretch.
I think we're coming out of 2 years of SE'lys so the beach sand profiles are already changed, and pretty thin in some places.
I just surfed two days in a row at W.P. .Today being Tuesday May 17th 2022 , it was definitely bigger than Monday was and with more power.
My word I will be sore tomorrow!
More like a hard boiled egg than an omelette that could feed the family
It’s running late. First of a couple 17 second period forerunners just hit far west Victoria 30-60 minutes ago.. shoulda been here tomorrow they said ;)
Impatient bastards… ;) Benny why is it often swells like this run behind time? More regularly than not from anecdotal evidence.
Ps the swell will all but peak overnight and will mostly likely disappear by day light tomorrrow so I would suggest surfing during the night to get the best of it
Hoping that full moon has some juice left in it to give me a bit of light later this evening
Huey couldn’t have timed it any better for the night owls and the brave. Keep those toes up and outta the water Dx3
Last night the full moon and clear sky over W.P. would have been good for having a noctural paddle. :-)
14 meter max wave height - 6:30pm at Cape Sorell is a pretty serious number. Direction turning too.
Wow!
As Ben said, it's a very gradual build too.
The swell proper is converging on us :)
Got a feeling there may be a few step ladder sets based on today. Just beasts of waves for this here coastline
And fingers crossed she’s got plenty of building in her yet VJ - well beyond theoretical estimates and we can try to topple NZs beast of record breaker.. Or at least that fateful day on the 6th of August 2012 :)
Oh that day! It was 26m or something ridiculous? Or was it 19m?
Anyways, was working west coast Tassie in 2003 and the local ABC radio said Cape Sorell buoy had snapped off at something like 75ft... honestly I'd have to go check to confirm. The ocean looked real enough!
Anyways, I'm booked for the morning, hopefully get a chance tomoz arvo
Hit 20 but NZ has more recently piped us at 23.8, next thing they will be telling us they claim bragging rights to Crowded House. That’s just cray! Bye bye buoy
Oh yeah, had a check later today at a certain monument, saw what I thought was 3-4ft of underlying swell, 5ft sets - then on one 'marker' reef saw a wave that came out of the blue and was way bigger than this. Just one...
That’s the sneaker step ladder ya want (or don’t want). Terminal velocity from the pocket, pedal to the metal sorta stuff. Whiplash! There was one or two about where I was at, a peaky couple straight into ruler edged groundswell proper. Nasty shit! Hope ya get plenty on the arvo run
FYI - Pt Nepean buoy data is back up.
Surfed or watched (from a number of vantage points) the swell all day. Midday high tide definitely had an impact a few hours either side. It looked a lot better late as the tide dropped and it looks like the swell is still building looking at Cape Sorrell.
Swell came in under forecast for the day but the winds were lighter than forecasted for most of the day. Great day on the surf coast. Sunshine, all day offshore and plenty of swell. Good vibes.
Yep. Mid-morning was fun and scored some bombs before it went pretty quiet approaching the lunch high tide. Wasn’t as big as I expected but had a ball regardless
Good to see some quality Autumn waves on the SC. (There haven't been too many unfortunately.) Pretty inconsistent at times down the GOR where I surfed, but more than happy with the day.
So what were the reasons it didn’t pan out as forecast yesterday?
Swell direction was too west?
Swell was later than expected?
Or bit of both?
Or something totally different?
Best not to make a full assessment mid-way through the event.. there's still a long way to go! Sorell has continued to climb slowly all night, and has now plateaued.
Anyone on the ground in Torquay late Tues arvo?
Yep fair call
Yes. The quality improved with the lower tide, but the size was not too different to the morning. My thoughts were that the size was lower than forecasted but the winds were better than forecasted for most of the day.
I was out late last night at outer possos. Super inconsistent but as it hit dark there were some 5-6ftish sets coming through there so normally add 2ft+ for winki/bells. I was happy with my possos call instead of winki when the sets hit for an overweight battler like myself. Cracking waves around this morning still - possos had some fun 4ft runners both inside and out and a lot more consistent than last night. Winki be cooking i imagine. Hope everyone has had a fill up.
looks big on the buoys, sounds big too, no sth in the wind............yet
Super high tide (2.04m) again in the middle of the day. A big chance for even more sand erosion with the size of the swell.
There is a lot of sand erosion on the coast. I have not see the water move as high in my lifetime at places like Torquay surf beach, Torquay front beach and Jan Juc.
Waves smashing into the wall at the Torquay surf beach yesterday creating some danger getting out of the water and a decent backwash too.
Way too much hype for the reality again.
Today's report, like yesterdays, seems to over-egg the size and quality - especially being written before first light. Bells yesterday was ordinary with a strong wonk in it - very green - and only 4-5ft with a stray 6 if you're from Queensland.
This may have been an unusual meteorological event, but appears to have fizzed as an unusual swell event. Sadly, the hype is becoming a much more common event.
Where hype??
Just another forecast tango.. obviously you are disappointed ..
Greyhound, hype abounds if you re-read the forecast notes plus the headlines - a few samples below in case you missed them. And the daily dawn reports have been over-egged completely....8/10 this morning? A bit of size but there was mess all through it, not even a clean swell. Makes me wonder if the anonymous person doing the report even gets out of bed or just logs on and checks a buoy reading - especially yesterday's 7/10 which was issued in the bloody dark!
I'm not disappointed that it isn't 10ft plus cos that's above my pay grade these days, but I am disappointed that such a level of hype takes over and that the speculation and froth serves nobody....except those with subscriptions to sell.
Fantastic period for Vicco surfers – Weds 11 May
“I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see the odd bigger set too (i.e. rogue 8-10ft+ sets at Surf Coast swell magnets); it’s a really impressively aligned frontal passage, at strength.”
Very large surf ahead, plus favourable windows to boot – Fri 13 May
“I really don’t want to over-egg the omelette, but the associated fetch is lining up in the best part of the Vicco swell window …. which helps to exaggerate eventual surf size above the usual model expectations. It's not a common event.”
“What this means is that we’re looking at a very large, powerful surf in all areas on Tuesday. How big? In Wednesday’s forecast I mentioned a general size range of 6-8ft+ surf along the Surf Coast, with a chance for 8-10ft+ sets at the swell magnets - and if anything I feel a little more confident in this outlook (could it push higher? Wouldn't rule it out).”
“Of course, not all locations will see the upper end of this size range, but regionally speaking, the model guidance suggests Tuesday's swell event could push up into the top 5-10% of Victorian swell events we might see in a year, based on size.”
And on Monday: “As for size, there’s really no evidence to change the forecast issued Friday..”
Well said
Craig put the moz on it, he couldn't have Benny upstage him and deliver the goods AGAIN! whilst he's on still on holidays ;)
Just saw one that was triple OH, so it is pretty solid(8ft). Just not WA kind of solid.
Best local waves I've had since a very long time. As usualt the swell ran late and late yesterday and moreso this morning was the best of it. Wind turning now. I cant see the written notes but where I was had sets well north of the surf forecast graph. Rode a gun and needed it.
Meh. Yesterday average and today decent size but underwhelming with tide/wonk
Sorell is still trending up! And the "brief, early period of W/NW winds" has held out longer than expected too.
Still trending Benny yip yip
The infra-gravity waves were hectic where I was. Stacked upon stacked upon stacked, pushing you towards rocky headlands when you were on the inside. Sometimes I feel these swells overwhelm some places, and swells end up a water movement towards shore rather than breaking waves especially on the higher tidal movements
Still plenty of pedal to the medal nugs to be had, pretty specially really
Hang in there Ben you will have your retribution on the naysayers!
Nice waves and conditions on the Winki cam.
Cant see one person on the winki cam? Surely there would be a couple? I understand it’s high tide but wow.
You Blind
Someone just got a Smoker.
Yeah one guy out now ... caught one but then got clobbered on the inside.
Still decent size to it but hard to tell how big from that angle.
If it's offshore and less than 50 out at winki, it's 4ft+
Less than 30 it's 6ft+
Less than 15 it's 8ft+
Any Less and it's usually too high of a tide or too much sweep! So, 1 person = big and sweepy!
You get any waves last couple days Stok?
Yeah, loving it down here. Getting so many more surfs in.
Haven't surfed Bells/Winki much actually, kind of enjoying settling for other waves, with less (or no) people on them.
Awesome mate. Yeh I'm the same, can't ever justify that winki crowd
I watched it closely yesterday for more than an hour in the morning and in the late afternoon. I counted more than 50 out on both occasions.
High tide, big swell, slight wonk, mountains of water moving around = hard yakka. Reminds me of big, raw Ulus unfortunately no Padang Padang round the corner.
Been keeping an eye on the cams both days. Looked plenty solid to me and super clean for long periods. Some large pieces of ocean moving through the lineup at Bells and Winki now. Was baffled to see pretty much a drop in on every wave yesterday morning in the very early morning light where you could only just make out the surfers. I guess it's been a long waveless period and there was alot of pent up froth!
See video of bells yesterday morn - Before the swell really hit but cool video from my mate. Ben/Craig/any other swellnet guru, pls feel free to post on your fast news section. He's a budding young photographer/videographer and would love the exposure + some great visuals to your audience
Great tune in that vid!
It was big lunchtime on SC. I would put it at 8ft with some sets in the 10ft range at Bells. No one out at the other main SC reefs, which only happens when it is really big. I reckon the forecast for today was pretty on the money. Yesterday was a bit underwhelming when I surfed early. I notice that the more west in the swell the more likely that big swell events don't deliver. But some west swells do deliver. I also suspect tide is an issue. I once heard Maurice Cole say that the tide changes the swell refraction into the SC.