Victorian Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Friday November 15th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Fun beachies most coasts early Saturday with freshening NE winds and easing swells
• Generally small and windy Sunday
• Low/mod confidence for an early window of good waves west of Melbourne on Monday (should be options inside W'Port)
• Easing surf Tues/Wed with light/mod S'lies
• Another decent groundswell Thurs/Fri but E'ly winds will spoil things Thurs, conditions should improve Fri

Recap

Small surf early Thursday built in size during the day with decent 3ft sets across the reefs in the afternoon however conditions were bumpy with onshore winds. The breeze has eased into today, not enough to properly clean up the wobble along the Surf Coast (though surf conditions were still OK) but the open beaches east of Melbourne fared a little better with the wind around to the SE. Today’s size has held steady around 3ft west of Melbourne and 4-5ft to the east.

This weekend (Nov 16 - 17)

No changes to the weekend outlook.

We’ve got two days of easing surf, with surf size expected to maintain 2-3ft sets across the Surf Coast and 3-5ft east of Melbourne on Saturday morning - however winds will be around to the NE which will only favour open beaches. 

Early on may retain a little bit of lumpiness from overnight SE winds so bear this in mind (the cleanest conditions will happen into the afternoon, though surf size will be easing at this point).

Also in the water on Saturday morning will be a small SE swell - generally showing west from Torquay - generated by a small fetch developing west of Flinders Island this morning. 

Sunday looks pretty average. Aside from a brief period of light variable winds early morning, we’re looking at windy conditions as a weak trough crosses the coast, with gusty W/SW winds trailing behind. This should impact most regions by mid-late morning, though by mid-late afternoon we may see the wind veer back to the W/NW as a stronger front stands up from the west.

Regardless, there won’t be any new swell in the water, we’ll see small residual energy from Saturday on offer. So unless you’re prepared to roll the dice for an early paddle ahead of the change, give it a miss. 

Next week (Nov 18 onwards)

OK, I’m gonna downgrade my outlook for the Monday swell.

The low still looks really good on the synoptic chart (see below, right) but unfortunately the models are now trending towards a disjointed multi-centered setup, essentially cutting off the primary low from polar latitudes, and developing two individual swell generating systems rather than one long fetch with an intense core, as was predicted a few days earlier. 

This wouldn’t be too much of an issue, except the primary system is positioned just north of our preferred swell window, which means we’ll see a lot more west in the swell direction, and this will also attenuate surf size in Torquay a lot more than previously thought.

We’re still going to see plenty of size though, as core winds around this low will be very strong (up to 40-50kts) but with local winds becoming fresh to strong (Surf Coast) and strong to gale force (East Coast), there won’t be many places to choose from.

So, let’s peg wave heights back to 3-5ft along the Surf Coast. Early morning should offer a brief window of W/NW winds before SW winds kick in mid-morning onwards, but I’m really not confident that the swell will be in the water at first light (shouldn’t be far behind) so keep your expectations in check, it’s definitely not a high confidence event and we could be in for some disappointment.

East of Melbourne should build to 6-8ft through the day and we’ll probably see waves in Western Port at some point; early morning will have the best conditions with a brief W/NW flow ahead of gusty SW winds, but again, the same swell-arrival-time-caveats applies here as per Torquay. Size could disappoonit at protected spots too, owing to the short fetch length, close eproximity of the swell source, and thus lower swell period.

Reinforcing SW swells from the associated polar low will fill in on Tuesday, easing Wednesday, but it’ll be about the same size as the easing energy from Monday (3-4ft west of Melbourne down to 2-3ft, a few feet bigger east of Melbourne).

Local winds look better but not great these days, throttling back to a light southerly that will probably be just enough to retain surface lumpiness at exposed spots.

Thursday looks tricky but likely a write-off. 

A new groundswell is expected to fill in, generated by a strong polar low developing east of Heard Island from Sunday onwards (and gaining strength rapidly below West Oz) - this should kick up inconsistent 3-5ft sets across the Surf Coast that’ll persist into Friday (and 6ft bombs east of Melbourne) however a strong high pressure ridge developing underneath Tasmania is expected to generate fresh to strong easterly winds through Bass Strait that will cause a whole heap of surface quality issues. They'll also generate 3ft+ of short period SE swell along the Surf Coast too.

These winds should ease into Friday but we really need a few more days to assess just how much Thursday’s local airflow will influence surf quality into the end of the week. 

Looking beyond this and a small spell is finally on the cards for the following week. 

Have a great weekend! See you Monday.