Victorian Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday November 8th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Strong groundswell building Saturday, peaking late afternoon, easing slowly Sunday
• Ideal winds west of Melbourne Saturday, all coasts Sunday
• More surf Monday with early light winds, freshening SE through the day
• More swell mid-week but iffy winds
• Another groundswell due around Fri

Recap

Thursday was very fun with 3ft sets west of Melbourne, pushing 4-5ft+ east of Melbourne with favourable winds in general (though slightly lumpy conditions at first light). Size eased into the afternoon but leveled out around 2ft and 4ft respectively today thanks to a minor swell reinforcement. Early N’ly winds are now strong W’ly following a strong frontal passage. We should see a windswell increase later. 

This weekend (Nov 9 - 10)

The weekend is still looking great.

Broadly speaking the size trend will be steadily up Saturday, and then slowly down on Sunday, with peak of the cycle - relative to the surfing community - expected on dark Saturday (it’ll probably occur overnight, but maximum visible size will be in the last few hours of sunlight Saturday).

How big? There’s no need to adjust Wednesday’s outlook, overall we’re looking at surf size west of Melbourne building from 3-5ft to 4-6ft throughout the day, whilst east of Melbourne will build to 6-8ft+ at open beaches by the afternoon (smaller earlier).

Sunday’s trend will be easing from 4-6ft at dawn to 3-5ft by the afternoon west of Melbourne, and from an early 6-8ft east of Melbourne.

A few extra points to clarify: Saturday’s upwards trend will be quite active and late afternoon may very well deliver some bigger bombs across the Surf Coast swell magnets (how big? Just north of 6ft, maybe 6-8ft). Chances are reasonable that these bigger waves will cease to be present by Sunday morning, though it certainly can’t be ruled out.

Local conditions are looking great on Saturday with light offshore winds and weak afternoon sea breezes. There is a risk that the strength of the morning offshore may not be quite enough to efficiently iron out all of the wobble from the overnight westerly flow through Bass Strait, but conditions will be improving steadily all morning.  

The afternoon sea breeze probably won’t have much strength but it certainly may take the sheen off things.

Sunday’s conditions look light and variable in the morning with light to moderate afternoon sea breezes. Just a gentle reminder: ‘light and variable’ means ‘from any direction’, which could potentially be onshore. But I don’t think it’ll be overly detrimental to the surf. 

So, it’s looking like a great weekend of waves pretty much everywhere, with protected spots east of Melbourne expected to have plenty of opportunities.

Next week (Nov 11 onwards)

Freshening SE winds are expected across the Surf Coast on Monday though strength shouldn’t be too much, especially through the morning. So I am expecting good waves to persist.

Fortunately there’s a strong reinforcing swell on the way, from a polar low developing at the tail end of the frontal system responsible for the weekend’s swell. This should rebuild the Surf Coast back up to 4-5ft+ early on, with the East Coast touching 6ft+ (a slightly reduced range in wave heights between coasts, owing to the S/SW swell direction). 

Modest frontal activity trailing behind should maintain plenty of swell for the rest of the week, easing from 3-4ft in Torquay on Tuesday to 2-3ft Wednesday before pulsing a little higher on Thursday (expect more size east of Melbourne though not enough for protected spots).

Winds look a little tricky through this period with a troughy period expected to bring about bouts of moderate southerly winds - nothing overly strong, but enough to lower quality indicators. I’ll revise this in Monday’s notes.

The models are still showing another strong front moving through the Southern Ocean early in the week which will setup a strong swell renewal for Friday, though they have downgraded a touch so I’m ballparking size range in the 3-4ft range west of Melbourne for a couple of days around Friday. This will still be a very good result for mid-November.

Long term activity remains quite boisterous with a whole heap of polar lows developing through our swell window, keeping us busy through the last two weeks of spring. 

Have a great weekend!