Victorian Forecast by Ben Matson (issued Wednesday March 12th)

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small leftovers with light winds Thurs
• Fun waves on Fri with a new long period groundswell and generally light winds
• Smaller surf Sat with generally light winds
• New long period groundswell building Sunday, good winds early (bigger later but likely wind affected)
• Stacks of swell for next week with favourable winds more often than not

Recap

New groundswell lines built slowly across Victoria on Tuesday, reaching 4-6ft east of Melbourne in the afternoon under fresh E’ly winds. The Surf Coast saw 2-3ft sets including a healthy mix of short range SE swell. Size has eased rapidly into today (a little more than expected), leaving us with 3ft sets east of Melbourne and 2ft sets west of Melbourne, the latter mainly consisting of SE windswell. Winds eased and went light N’ly this morning, so most coasts have been clean. A shallow SW change reached the Surf Coast early afternoon and will cross the Peninsula and Island later today.

Strong sets east of Melbourne on Tuesday afternoon

This week (Mar 13 - 14)

Light, lingering onshore winds are expected across the Victorian coast on Thursday. There won’t be much strength in it so conditions should be quite OK - even possibly an early land breeze at some locations - but today’s swell is on the way out (both of ‘em) so expect small grovelly waves at the open beaches (swell magnets east of Melbourne your only real option for a surf).

During the day we’ll see some new long period swell reach the Cape Sorell buoy, that will show across the Victorian coast on Friday. This swell will have been generated by a large, slow moving polar low well SW of WA earlier this week. 

Note: this is a distant source so there’ll be very long breaks between the sets. 

Wave heights should increase into the 2-3ft+ range across the Surf Coast on Friday, with the upper end of this size range showing across the swell magnet reefs (smaller at the beaches). East of Melbourne should push back up into the 4-5ft+ range. Keep in mind, the long flat period spells between sets could be deceptive as to the true state of play.

Fortunately, conditions look pretty good with generally light variable winds and sea breezes. So it’ll be worth a paddle. 

This weekend (Mar 15 - 16)

We have a complex weekend of waves ahead but there should be some good options around.

Friday’s swell will ease into Saturday, with perhaps some minor reinforcements from mid-range energy sourced from a pre-frontal W/NW flow sitting just ahead of a significant Southern Ocean low, that’ll generate a solid swell for Sunday.

Generally light variable winds and sea breezes are also expected on Saturday (as per Friday) so conditions are still looking good for both coasts. I’ll peg wave heights around the inconsistent 2ft+ mark in Torquay (maybe the odd bigger set at the swell magnets if we’re lucky) and 3-4ft+ east of Melbourne.

During the day, long period energy from the next major swell will reach Cape Sorell however it probably won’t start trending up along the coast until Sunday, as the bulk energy will be sitting some 18-24 hours behind the leading edge. 

Unfortunately, a gusty onshore change will cross the coast into the afternoon so we’ll be running the gauntlet trying to find the best window of opportunity on the building swell trend before the wind ruins it. As such, early morning is looking at proving the best waves but it’ll be undersized. 

I’m thinking the Surf Coast will build from 2-3ft to 4-5ft during the day, with the East Coast expected to build from 3-5ft to 6-8ft (the afternoon should offer a late session inside Western Port).

I’ll fine tune these numbers on Friday.

Next week (Mar 17 onwards)

No change to the outlook for next week, with a strengthening conveyor belt of Southern Ocean fronts expected to generate an extended period of elevated wave heights across the Surf Coast from Sunday thru’ next Thursday or thereabouts.

Even better, the high pressure belt will probably remain in place across the coast, so - apart from Monday, which looks like it’ll be influenced by a vigorous frontal passage - most of next week should see relatively light winds, therefore spreading opportunities across more coastal regions. 

Either way we’ve got a great run of autumnal swell coming up for the entire state.