Victorian forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday February 12th)

Best Days: This morning on the beaches, tomorrow morning exposed beaches, Saturday morning Surf Coast

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small to tiny surf tomorrow with strengthening N/NE winds ahead of a strong SW chang emid-late PM
• Small-mod spike in SW swell later Fri with morning W/NW winds, tending strong SW into the PM
• Moderate sized S/SW swell for Sat AM, with a further increase in windswell through the day, easing slowly Sun
• Gusty W-W/NW winds Sat AM, shifting strong SW through the day with strong S/SW winds Sun
• Easing surf Mon with fresh S-S/SW winds
• Stregthening S/SW winds Tue with a small, inconsistent W/SW groundswell
• Pereistent S/SW winds Wed with a moderate sized, inconsistent W/SW groundswell

Recap

Easing levels of SE windswell and background S/SW swell with slowly abating winds out of the eastern quadrant were seen yesterday with workable but mostly average waves to the east, poor to the west though improving a little into the afternoon.

Today conditions are cleaner across all locations with a further drop in swell energy, coming in at a peaky 2ft on the Surf Coast and 2-3ft to the east. Both swells will continue to fade today as winds remain favourable until mid-afternoon.

This week and weekend (Feb 13 - 16)

The current mix of swells will continue to drop into tomorrow as winds strengthen out of the N/NE before giving into a strong S/SW change late afternoon. The Surf Coast will be tiny with small 2ft leftovers to the east.

As touched on in Monday’s notes, this change will be associated with a mid-latitude low moving in from the west, with it dropping south-east from the Bight tomorrow while generating a short-lived fetch of strong to gale-force W/SW winds in our swell window.

This should kick up a moderate sized spike in SW swell for later Friday afternoon/Saturday morning, with the morning likely coming in tiny ahead of it. The Surf Coast should spike to 2-3ft or so with 4-5ft sets to the east, but morning W/NW winds will shift strong SW by the time the swell arrives.

The change will be linked to a secondary polar front projecting up and into us over the weekend, bringing with it a mix of mid-period S/SW swell and localised windswell due to build through Saturday ahead of a peak Sunday.

Apart from W’ly winds on Saturday morning, strong SW winds look to meet this swell into the afternoon, strong from the S/SW into Sunday.

The swell will be likely undersized on Saturday morning and still only around 3ft+ on the Surf Coast before kicking with the onshore winds into the afternoon/Sunday to 3-5ft with 6ft+ sets to the east.

Once the polar front clears early next week, the winds and swell will slowly back off together with moderate to fresh S’ly winds leaving no real options on Monday, while come Tuesday the next approaching trough looks to bring strengthening S/SW winds through the day.

All in all, not ideal at all.

Now, this next trough will spoil a good new W/SW groundswell due into Tuesday/Wednesday, with the source being a broad low forming north-east of the Heard Island region later this week.

The catalyst for the low will be Tropical Cyclone Vince drifting south from the Indian Ocean and being absorbed into the westerly storm track, with a great fetch of severe-gale to storm-force SW winds due to be projected through our western swell window before the low breaks down south of Western Australia this weekend.

There’ll actually be two pulses of W/SW groundswell from the low, an initial small increase Tuesday from a small pre-frontal fetch at the head of the low, with the better increase from the backside due on Wednesday.

Size wise the best pulse for Wednesday looks to come in at an inconsistent 3-4ft on the Surf Coast magnets and 6ft+ to the east but with fresh S/SW winds, easing Thursday as south winds persist.

Cleaner conditions for the beaches are possible next weekend, but more on this Friday.