Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 20th January)

Best Days: Locations to the east tomorrow morning, keen surfers east of Melbourne Monday morning, Wednesday morning exposed beaches

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate sized S/SW groundswell filling in Sat with mod E tending gusty S/SE winds
• Small SE windswell for Sat/Sun/Mon
• Easing S/SW groundswell Sun with fresh S/SE-SE tending strong S/SE winds
• Small, fading surf Mon with light E/NE tending S/SE winds
• Fading surf Tue with variable tending SE winds
• Small, inconsistent W/SW groundswell building Wed, peaking later/Thu AM
• Variable tending SE winds Wed ahead of a late S/SW change

Recap

Poor surf through yesterday with a mix of new mid-period SW swell and localised S'ly swell but with strong S'ly winds. Today the swell is slowly easing but with persistent fresh S winds and a couple of options to the east.

This weekend and next week (Jan 21 - 27)

We should see conditions improve across the beaches to the east tomorrow morning as winds tip E'ly and ease, providing lumpy but clean faces ahead of gusty S/SE sea breezes.

A new moderate sized S/SW groundswell is due to fill in through the day, generated by a healthy polar low that formed to the south of Western Australia mid-week. A fetch of W/SW gales should produce good 3ft waves across the Surf Coast (undersized early) and 4-5ft sets to the east, before easing into Sunday.

Unfortunately the trough linked to tomorrow's window of lighter winds will slip south-east into Sunday as a high pressure system starts to fill in from the west. This will bring fresh S/SE-SE winds, strengthening into the afternoon, creating poor conditions across most locations and a building SE windswell.

Lighter winds should develop into Monday morning, tending variable from the E/NE to the east and variable S/SE on the Surf Coast but with smaller, easing surf from the weekend, dropping back from 1-2ft 2ft to possibly 3ft to the east.

Tuesday should see similar variable winds but with no swell left in the tank, a lay day.

The models are showing a small groundswell building Wednesday but the source is a very distant polar low that formed south-east of South Africa. It won't provide any size at all, with very inconsistent 2ft sets maybe seen on the Surf Coast Wednesday afternoon, 3-4ft to the east but best in the morning before sea breezes kick in.

Unfortunately another trough will bring strengthening S/SW winds later in the day Wednesday, with SW breezes persisting Thursday. Swell wise the inconsistent groundswell from Wednesday afternoon should hold Thursday but otherwise there's only a small mid-period swell expected to back up wave heights into the afternoon/Friday.

The longer term outlook is tricky and dynamic with a couple of swell possibilities, one favourable and the other not as much so. We'll go over this on Monday. Have a great weekend!