Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday August 23rd)

Best Days: Today, tomorrow, Sunday morning exposed beaches, Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning Surf Coast, Surf Coast Thursday onwards next week

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing W/SW swell this afternoon, further on the weekend
• Strong but easing N-N/NW winds tomorrow, NW into the PM
• Strengthening N/NE tending N/NW winds, easing later
• Small-mod sized, building W'ly swell Mon PM with strong but easing W/NW winds
• Easing swell Tue with strong N/NW winds
• Building W/SW swell Wed but more so Thu, large and peaking from the SW Fri with W/NW-NW winds

Recap

A small, long-range W/SW groundswell offered slow 1-2ft sets on the Surf Coast yesterday, clean across most spots, with bumpy/choppy 3-4ft waves to the east.

This morning, our much anticipated pulse of fun sized W’ly swell is in with great, clean 4ft waves on the Surf Coast and 6ft+ surf to the east.

This swell is due to start easing into the afternoon as winds vary between the N-N/NE across most locations while strengthening.

Finally some swell on the Surf Coast!

This weekend and next week (Aug 24 - 30)

We’ve got easing surf all weekend following this morning’s pulse and peak of W/SW swell.

This is thanks to the swell generating frontal system moving in under the Bight moving across past us yesterday, with a secondary weaker system moving through this morning.

Easing 2-3ft sets are due on the Surf Coast magnets tomorrow, 4-5ft to the east and then 1-2ft and 3ft to occasionally 4ft respectively Sunday.

Strong but easing N-N/NW winds are due through tomorrow, shifting NW into the afternoon, with Sunday seeing strengthening N/NE winds, shifting back N/NW into the afternoon while easing a little.

Moving into next week, and the frontal system linked to a spike in swell Monday has been downgraded a little with a small burst of strong W-W/NW winds into the early morning due to produce a very west spike in swell through the day.

The Surf Coast looks to build to 2ft to possibly 3ft on the magnets with 3-5ft sets to the east under strong but easing W/NW winds.

This swell will ease back through Tuesday from a similar size with a much more significant cold outbreak due to fire up under the country during early-mid next week.

The source will actually be the remnants of a strong low that’s spawned off Madagascar, with this due to traverse the Indian Ocean, combining with a strong frontal system projecting from the south-west of WA.

Now, the models diverge regarding the makeup of this outbreak as it moves in towards us, with GFS showing an earlier evolution of swell through Wednesday/Thursday while EC has it more delayed and into Thursday/Friday.

EC has been consistently nailing these systems in the Indian Ocean so I’m tempted to go with a large increase in W/SW and SW swells for Thursday/Friday and to what at this stage looks to be the 6ft range on the Surf Coast with winds from the north-western quadrant. More on this Monday, have a great weekend!