Victorian Surf Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday 12th May)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Nice weekend of waves, best suited to open beaches; sizeable east of Melbourne
• Low point Monday
• Solid new swell Tues but with generally onshore winds (poss brief W/NW window at dawn)
• Strong though easing swells for the rest of the week with better winds
• Reinforcing swell Fri/Sat, holding through the weekend
• More swell for the following week

Recap

Fun though easing surf managed early 3-4ft sets east of Melbourne early Thursday, abating to a slow 2ft this morning. West of Melbourne eased from 2ft to 1ft. Conditions have been clean for most part up until the arrival of a lunchtime SW change today, which is ruffling conditions across most regions this afternoon.

Tiny but clean in Torquay this AM

Tiny but clean at Portsea this AM

This weekend (May 13 - 14)

No real change to the weekend forecast.

Essentially, we’ve got a brief flush of W/SW swell for Saturday that will favour the open beaches east of Melbourne, before easing in size into Sunday.

This swell has been generated by a cut-off low pushing through the Bight, which then tracked south-east towards its current position underneath Tasmania, managing to spend only a short period of time within our swell window. So, not only will the swell have a lot of west in its direction, it’ll be a relatively short lived affair. 

It’s also with mentioning that swells sourced from these kinds of systems often produce very inconsistent set waves - no matter how exposed your coast is - but this characteristic is exaggerated at locations where the swell undergoes refraction and diffraction (in this case, the Surf Coast, which will be far more off-axis to the incoming energy than locations east of Melbourne). So, expect very inconsistent waves across this region. 

Fortunately, conditions are looking clean both days with light variable winds, probably tending NE if anything. This is ideal for most open beaches.

As for size, I’m expecting most of the Surf Coast to be pretty slow going in the 2ft range on Saturday, though some of the regional swell magnets could see stray 3ft sets. The upper end of this size range should be more prevalent along the Bellarine region, and then we’ll see bigger surf at the Mornington Peninsula’s open beaches (4-5ft+), with bigger waves again at Phillip Island’s open stretches (say, 5-6ft+). Anywhere even partially sheltered will be smaller in size. 

Wave heights will trend down through Sunday, but with clean conditions there should be excellent options around, particularly east of Melbourne. Keep your expectations low along the Surf Coast due to the borderline size.

So, pick a coast according to your size preference this weekend, and you should do well across most of the beachbreaks.

Next week (May 15 onwards)

Surf size will bottom out on Monday morning and winds will gradually freshen from the NW, so options will be somewhat limited. Light winds may occur early morning so this will be the best time to hit up the open beaches east of Melbourne.

A strong conveyor belt of polar fronts and low presently forming near Heard Island will strengthen over the weekend, and their first groundswell of note will push through the region later Monday, building strongly by Tuesday morning before fluctuating in strength for much of the following week.

Tuesday’s initial increase should push 4-5ft along the Surf Coast (occ 6ft sets at the regional swell magnets by the afternoon) however it’ll be accompanied by a fresh to strong W/SW tending SW change. It’s currently modelled for an early-morning arrival, however this also gives a potential brief window of W/NW winds along the Surf Coast at dawn. East of Melbourne will be considerably bigger with decent (though smaller) options inside protected areas. 

Generally light winds are expected Wed (S’ly) and Thurs (W’ly) with the swell slowly easing from 3-5ft west from Melbourne, with bigger surf to the east, again favouring protected spots. 

A reinforcing pulse of SW swell from another polar low is then expected around Friday or Saturday, which should keep the region flush with plenty of good waves through the following weekend.

Long term suggests strong pre-winter fronts will maintain strength through the entire swell window into the following week too, which suggests the pattern should remain active.

Have a great weekend!