Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday June 12th)

Best Days: Tomorrow, Friday, selected spots to the east Saturday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate + sized mid-period S/SW swell tomorrow, easing slowly Friday
• Variable winds tomorrow (W/NW to the west in the AM)
• Variable NE winds on the Surf Coast Fri AM, with E/NE-NE winds to the east 
• Smaller Sat with fresh E/SE-E winds
• Poor windswell Sun with strengthening S-S/SW winds
• Sneaky SE groundswell possible later Sun and Mon AM to the west
• Strong S/SW winds persisting Mon
• Easing mix of small swells, with a distant groundswell in the mix Tue with W/NW winds
• Fading surf Wed with NW winds

Recap

The surf was tiny and windy through yesterday as a strong mid-latitude low moved across us, with no real size seen at all before dark.

Today we’ve got swell from a stronger cold front pushing up and over us in the water with stormy 4-6ft waves on the Surf Coast and 6ft+ to the east with strong SW winds.

This week and weekend (Jun 13 - 16)

Following today’s increase in localised SW swell, we’ve got stronger levels of S/SW swell due tomorrow and Friday, generated by the earlier stages of the polar front when it was near the shelf.

We should see the Surf Coast holding 4-5ft tomorrow with 6ft sets to the east, easing Friday from 3-4ft and 4-6ft respectively.

Local winds now look favourable for the Surf Coast tomorrow with a light W/NW breeze, more variable to the east, and remaining variable across all locations into the afternoon.

This will be worth capitalising on, as will be more variable winds from the NE on the Surf Coast Friday morning, E/NE to NE to the east.

The reason it’ll be worth capitalising on is that a low forming in the Tasman Sea to our east will push back towards us on the weekend, bringing gusty E-E/SE winds on Saturday that will then shift S-S/SW and strengthen on Sunday, persisting Monday.

This low will generate some large SE groundswell for exposed locations east of Bass Strait and we may see this sneaking through later Sunday and into early Monday acrcoss select locations.

We should see the low start to weaken and clear back east on Tuesday, allowing winds to shift back to the W/NW but with only a small, inconsistent W/SW groundswell mixed in with easing levels of S/SW windswell.

The Surf Coast doesn’t look to top 2ft with 3-4ft sets to the east.

The rest of the week remains small to tiny with nothing of note until very late in the week but most likely next weekend. This revolves around some mid-latitude instability moving in from the north, with the models not converging on the outcome as yet. So in the meantime make the most of tomorrow and Friday.