Victorian forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday March 24th)

Best Days: Tomorrow on the beaches, Wednesday morning, Thursday morning to the east selected spots, Friday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Smaller tomorrow with a reinforcing mid-period swell in the mix. Variable E/NE winds ahead of S/SE sea breezes
• Moderate + sized mix of long-range groundswell and closer-range SW swells building Wed, peaking in the PM, easing Thu
• Light-mod S winds Wed, freshening through the day
• Mod-fresh S/SE winds Thu AM, weaker to the east and variable E/NE across PI in the AM
• Smaller Fri with N/NE winds ahead of sea breezes
• Strengthening S/SW winds on Sat with small surf
• Strong E/SE-SE winds Sun with a stormy increase in SE windswell.

Recap

The weekend provided quality waves across both regions with Saturday morning coming in best across the Surf Coast. Friday afternoon’s increase in mid-period W/SW-SW swell eased back from 3ft to occasionally 4ft with conditions being cleanest through the morning.

Into yesterday, conditions were cleaner than expected on the Surf Coast with variable winds and offshore conditions to the east. Our strong pulse of SW groundswell arrived strongly through the morning with pulsing sets to 6ft on the Surf Coast and 8ft to the east. Conditions remained clean until about midday-early afternoon ahead of a trough and onshore change.

This morning the swell has backed off with bumpy conditions thanks to lingering onshore breezes in the way of yesterday’s trough.

This week and weekend (Mar 25 - 30)

Following the recent run of quality surf days to the west of Melbourne, the coming outlook will focus the attention to the east.

The current easing swell from the weekend will continue into tomorrow, while a reinforcing pulse of mid-period W/SW swell is due to maintain wave heights around 2-3ft on the Surf Coast and 4-5ft to the east.

Conditions look generally favourable for the beaches with a variable E/NE breeze due through the morning ahead of freshening S/SE sea breezes.

Into Wednesday, we’ve got our inconsistent, long-range groundswell due to arrive through the day, generated by a strong but distant polar low that formed south-east of South Africa last week.

Initially, in our far swell window, a fetch of severe-gale W’ly winds were produced (with a couple of embedded storm-force bursts), with the low tracking slightly east-northeast while weakening on the weekend.

There should be a mix of more consistent but smaller mid-period energy in the mix Wednesday generated by a deepening frontal progression south-west of us today (left). Both are due to build into the afternoon, reaching 4ft on the Surf Coast (the odd 5ft set likely) and 6ft+ to the east.

Unfortunately local winds on Wednesday aren’t ideal but doable with a light to moderate S’ly breeze due to freshen throughout the day. The morning ahead of the bulk of the swell will be OK for the keen.

Thursday still looks average with easing levels of swell under a moderate S/SE breeze (more variable from the E/NE across Phillip Island through the morning), improving on the beaches into Friday as winds shift to the N/NE.

We should see the Surf Coast backing off from 2ft with 3-4ft sets to the east.

Now, besides a small pulse of mid-period swell for Saturday, the outlook becomes windy and poor into Sunday and early next week as a deepening inland surface trough drifts south and deepens off the East Coast.

This will bring strengthening winds out of the south-eastern quadrant along with some localised, stormy SE windswell, especially into Sunday. The developments and movement of the inland trough/low into early next week are still up in the air, as are the local winds (likely more east).

Regardless, a moderate sized SW groundswell is likely to be in the mix as well next Tuesday but we’ll have a closer look at this in the next update.