Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday September 16th)

Best Days: Surf Coast every day

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate sized mix of close-range swell and S/SW groundswell for tomorrow AM, easing. Strong W/NW winds
• Moderate sized SW swell building Wed PM, easing temporarily Thu AM
• Strong N/NW tending W/NW winds Wed, strong W/NW Thu
• Large SW groundswell possibly showing later Thu but filling in Fri, peaking during the day with NW tending strong W/NW winds
• Large reinforcing W/SW swell Sat with NW winds, easing Sun with strong W/NW winds
• Large W/SW groundswell building later Sun, peaking Mon/Tue with NW winds on Mon, variable offshore tending SE Tue

Recap

Onshore winds spoilt an otherwise good sized SW groundswell on Saturday with workable waves for the desperate on the Surf Coast, less so yesterday as winds shifted S/SE.

This morning conditions are a little better but still worse for wear with cross-shore winds and lumpy surf to 3-4ft or so. Conditions will worsen through the day thanks to cold front clipping the state, bringing some additional low quality SW swell energy.

This week and weekend (Sep 17 - 22)

As touched on last week, this coming period will see the westerly storm track firing back up under the country with a progression of significant polar storms due to generate large, back to back pulses of groundswell. This will be under the influence of a strong node of the Long Wave Trough setting up just east of Tasmania. This intensification of the Long Wave Trough will be actually linked to tropical activity firing up in the Western Pacific due to the MJO (but this needs a more in depth article to desrcibe the mechanics).

Firstly, today’s system will clear tomorrow allowing winds to shift back to the W/NW with easing levels of mid-period SW-S/SW swell mixed in with a new pulse of S/SW groundswell. The groundswell was generated by a fetch of severe-gale W/NW-NW winds moving in under the country on the weekend, with the Surf Coast expected to ease from 4ft tomorrow, 6ft+ to the east.

Wednesday morning looks a little smaller ahead of a mid-period W/SW swell into the afternoon, generated by a front moving towards us today and tomorrow, generating another off axis fetch of strong to near gale-force W/NW winds.

A kick back to the 4ft range is due on the Surf Coast with strong N/NW tending W/NW winds, with Thursday looking a touch smaller with persistent, strong W/NW winds.

Now, from Friday we should see the first pulse of large swell filling in, with a relatively weak polar low forecast to fire up south of the country on Wednesday/Thursday, projecting a fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds through our south-western swell window.

This should produce a large SW groundswell for Friday, building towards a peak into the afternoon with the Surf Coast reaching 6-8ft, with 8-10ft surf to the east.

A secondary more zonal front moving in Thursday/Friday should produce a reinforcing W/SW swell for the weekend to the 6ft+ range on the Surf Coast and 8ft+ to the east Saturday morning, a little smaller into Sunday morning.

The downtrend won’t be sustained, with another series of significant storms due to move in over the weekend, generating more large pulses of W/SW groundswell into Sunday afternoon and early next week.

At this stage surf to the 6-8ft range is again due on the Surf Coast with 10ft sets to the west. We’ll have a closer look at the timings and peak in size Wednesday/Friday.

Local winds will continue to be favourable for the Surf Coast and other protected breaks with a NW tending strong W/NW breeze on Friday, persistent NW on Saturday and then strong but easing W/NW on Sunday.

Monday at this stage looks to see NW winds, tending variable with local offshore tending SE winds on Tuesday. We’ll take a closer look at this in the coming updates.