Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday November 27th)

Best Days: Today, Sunday morning Surf Coast, Tuesday morning, WednesdatyThursday next week (winds pending)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Low point in swell tomorrow AM with variable tending fresh SE winds
• Strong E/SE-SE winds Fri with moderate levels of building SE windswell (moderate sized, building SW groundswell also in the mix)
• Winds easing a touch Sat as the SE windswell continues
• Small, fading SE windswell and background SW swell Sun with W/NW tending W/SW winds
• Small Mon AM, with a long-range, inconsistent W/SW groundswell building into the PM
• W/NW tending SE winds Mon
• Easing swell Tue with N/NE tending SE winds
• Moderate sized W/SW groundswell building next Wed, easing Thu

Recap

Light, variable winds and heavy fog set in across the Surf Coast yesterday morning, lingering around the Torquay region and further west most of the day. Our new swell arrived though kicking the Surf Coast to an easy 3ft with solid 5-6ft sets to the east as morning winds went a little sea breezy.

Today the swell is easing and light winds are creating clean conditions across all locations with easing 2-3ft waves on the Surf Coast, 3-5ft to the east. Conditions will remain favourable ahead of a late afternoon S/SW change.

Great waves in between bigger closeouts today

This week and weekend (Nov 28 - Dec 1)

We’ve unfortunately had a deterioration to the wind outlook into the end of the week, when our good, long-range W/SW groundswell is due to arrive.

A trough that’s linked to later this afternoon’s change will linger in the region tomorrow before being squeezed by an inland depression through Friday/Saturday.

This will bring freshening SE winds tomorrow afternoon ahead of stronger E/SE-SE breezes on Friday/Saturday (a touch weaker) along with moderate levels of stormy SE windswell.

This will overpower any SW groundswell seen into Friday afternoon with nowhere to really recommend.

Into Sunday we’re looking at a 180° swing in winds back to the W/NW as the low to our north drifts south. This will see rapidly easing levels of SE windswell and background SW swell from 2ft+ on the Surf Coast, bumpy and poor to the east.

Moving into next week and a lingering W/NW wind will favour the Surf Coast on Monday morning ahead of sea breezes.

Size wise the morning looks small, but through the day a very distant, long-range W/SW groundswell is due to build into the afternoon and peak overnight, with very slow 2ft to possibly 3ft sets due on the Surf Coast, 3-5ft to the east.

The source is a very distant storm that developed south-east of South Africa and is now moving through the Indian Ocean.

Tuesday could be the pick as the swell eases under a N/NE offshore but we’ll have to confirm this on Friday.

Longer term a great low forming to the south-west of Western Australia is set to produce a great, slow moving fetch of gales while moving through our western swell window. This should generate a moderate sized W/SW groundswell for Wednesday/Thursday. More on this Friday.