Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday July 22nd)

Best Days: Today, tomorrow, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate + sized W/SW groundswell for this afternoon, with a secondary pulse for tomorrow, easing Wed
• Moderate to fresh N-N/NW winds tomorrow, strong at times
• Strong N-N/NE winds Wed, strong N/NW tending weaker W/NW Thu
• Late increase in small-mod sized W/SW swell Thu, peaking Fri AM
• Strong N/NW-N winds Fri
• Mixed W/SW swells for the weekend with N-N/NW winds Sat AM, tending SW and then S/SW winds Sun

Recap

A slow weekend of surf with some small, inconsistent W/SW swell on Saturday under morning offshores that then built slowly through yesterday in the wake of a severe frontal system moving through.

The morning was a fun 2-3ft or so on the Surf Coast while the late afternoon provided a few bigger but still slow 3-4ft sets owing to the west nature of the swell.

This morning looks much better with more size and a further increase in new W/SW groundswell due through the day. We should see the Surf Coast building more towards 4-5ft as winds hold from the N/NW-NW.

This week and weekend (Jul 23 - 28)

Today and tomorrow are the best of the coming period on the Surf Coast so get stuck in amongst the fun sized swell.

A strong mid-latitude frontal progression that was seen through the weekend is the source of the current and building swell across the region. This swell will ease into tomorrow, but one final, trailing and slightly more southward positioned frontal system should generate a reinforcing pulse of W/SW groundswell for tomorrow, arriving during the morning, slowing the easing trend.

This should see the Surf Coast holding in the 4-5ft range on the magnets most of tomorrow, then easing from 3ft+ on Wednesday. Locations to the east should be around 6ft+ tomorrow, easing back from 4-5ft+ on Wednesday morning,

Winds look to have a bit more north in them tomorrow morning, flirting between N-N/NW both east and west of Melbourne, with Wednesday seeing stronger N-N/NE winds as the swell eases.

Thursday morning looks smaller again and with strong N-N/NW winds, tending W/NW and easing as a cold front moves across us.

This front doesn’t look to bring much in the way of swell with the earlier stages of it, currently south-west of Western Australia expected to generate some small to moderate sized, mid-period W/SW swell for later in the day but more so Friday morning.

Wind strengths will fall below gale-force in the swell generating fetch and this looks to result in surf to 2-3ft mostly on the Surf Coast (3ft magnets) with 4-5ft+ sets to the east and with strong N-N/NW winds on Friday as the next swell generating front approaches.

Overall, the incoming activity for the weekend looks patchy and not great for surf with mixed fetches of strong to gale-force W/NW-NW winds in our western swell window.

With this, we’re expecting inconsistent but clean waves on the Surf Coast, maxing to 2-3ft but we’ll have a closer look at this on Wednesday and Friday. Winds look good Saturday morning but then dicy thereafter.

Longer term there’s nothing major due at all through next week besides further, small pulses of W’ly swell but with favourable northerly winds. More on this Wednesday.