Victorian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday 19th October)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small kick Thurs with winds tending E'ly through the day (pockets of light winds early)
• Tricky winds Fri but with a little more size, chance for a few fun beachies
• Easing swells over the weekend with average conditions
• Large local E/SE windswell Mon but with poor conditions, holding Tues but then easing ahead of a W'ly change, chance for a window of solid clean beachies west of Melbourne
• Not much into the longer term

Recap

Monday’s strong swell eased slowly through Tuesday though the Surf Coast managed early 3-4ft sets with 4-6ft waves on offer to the east of Melbourne (see below!), before a slow easing trend kicked in through the day. Conditions were clean with light winds and sea breezes, which have replicated today as wave heights have continued the easing trend from 1-2ft west of Melbourne and 2-3ft+ to the east early this morning, now even smaller. 

This week (Oct 20 - 21)

We’ve got a couple of small swells inbound over the next few days; a minor bump in size for Thursday and a slightly bigger pulse Friday. 

Tomorrow’s swell is a mid-range event and has just been recorded at the Cape Sorell buoy, with significant periods jumping from 6.5 seconds overnight to 10.5 seconds this afternoon. This should translate to inconsistent 2ft, almost 2-3ft at the Surf Coast swell magnets (bigger on the MP and PI) though we will be at risk of a developing E’ly tending SE breeze through the day. However early morning should offer a period of light variable/onshore winds, so there may be a window of workable options at some coasts (more likely west from Melbourne).

The E/SE synoptic flow will muscle up through Bass Strait overnight as a trough pressure trough muscles up with a high to the south, providing some short range windswell on top of a minor kick in groundswell that should lift the Surf Coast to 2-3ft+, though local winds are very dicey - we’ll have a robust breeze just offshore but there is a chance local inshore winds may be light and variable. It’s a low confidence outlook though, so don’t plan on any highway miles west of Melbourne just yet.

East of Melbourne won’t pick up much of the short range windswell on Friday, but open beaches should see inconsistent 4-5ft sets from the pulsing groundswell, albeit inconsistent. Even if the wind crops up here, surface conditions should be OK at most open beaches.

This weekend (Oct 22 - 23)

Easing swells from all sources are expected into Saturday, as the surface trough is shunted away by a weak front. This should leave us with generally variable winds though exposed beaches may see a lingering SW flow trailing the front. Surf conditions will be best suited to the beach breaks; initially 2ft+ west of Melbourne and 4ft+ to the east, losing a foot or more by Sunday. 

A brand new low pressure trough developing over the state on Sunday will squeeze the pressure gradient and strengthen easterlies into the afternoon, along with a late kick in local windswell. As such, make the most of the early session (best east of Melbourne) for small clean beachies. 

As a side note, Sunday may also see a short range S’ly swell build during the day, sourced from the eastern flank of a high pressure system abutting the developing coastal trough (overnight Saturday). Some model guidance has strong S’ly winds running along Tasmania’s West Coast and up north of King Island; it’s an unusual swell source and isn’t often accompanied by locally light winds so I wouldn’t put much faith in the chance for decent waves, but I’ll keep an eye on it for Friday.

Next week (Oct 25 onwards)

Looks like a major short range E/SE windswell event is shaping up for early next week under the influence of this slow moving surface trough. This is expected to drive gale force winds through Bass Strait, which will generate solid swells that could reach 4-5ft+ west from Torquay on Monday.

Of course, local conditions will be terrible however the trough is expected to evolve into a broadscale close low pressure system at some point - probably later Tuesday and overnight into Wednesday - by which time winds will have swung westerly. 

This suggests a potentially interesting window of fun, peaky SE swell and offshore winds for the Surf Coast. I’ll take another pass on this in Friday’s update to show a bit more confidence in the size and timing (either late Tues or early Wed).

Otherwise, this slow moving surface trough looks like it’ll steer Southern Ocean storm track away from our window, resulting in low SW groundswell energy for the foreseeable future (resulting in smaller surf east of Melbourne, due to the steep angle of the windswell). There’s a suggestion that this pattern may break down around the following weekend (Sunday 30th) but for now there’s not much on the cards from this swell window.

See you Friday!