Victorian forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday March 31st)

Best Days: Thursday morning to the east, Sunday onwards into next week

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Mod-large SW groundswell filling in tomorrow, peaking through the day with mod-fresh E/SE winds, strengthening
• Easing swell Wed with light-mod E-E/SE winds ahead of fresh sea breezes
• Smaller Thu AM with variable tending fresh S/SW winds mid-AM
• Small-mod sized W/SW swell building Fri, peaking in the PM with SW winds (possibly W/NW early Surf Coast)
• Small-mod sized SW swell Sat with gusty W/SW-SW winds
• Large SW groundswell building Sun PM, peaking Mon/Tue under W/NW-W/SW winds

Recap

The window for a clean wave on the weekend was very limited with the pre-dawn session Saturday offering light winds to the east of Melbourne before a trough brought a strong onshore change.

This wind shifted E/SE-SE into yesterday, whipping up a stormy SE windswell across the Surf Coast while to the east options were limited to selected protected spots with a lift in mid-period swell.

Today winds are still strong from the S/SE-SE along with no real quality to be found. A larger SW groundswell is due later this afternoon and more so tomorrow, discussed below.

This week and weekend (Apr 1 - 6)

As touched on last week, we’ve got a strong groundswell due into later today but more so tomorrow, generated by a strong, elongated frontal progression swinging in from the Indian Ocean, generating fetches of gale to severe-gale W-W/NW winds.

The swell will have a couple of pulses, with a late increase due later today though tomorrow will see the bulk of the energy, peaking through the middle of the day to afternoon with 4-5ft+ sets likely on the Surf Coast magnets and 6ft to occasionally 8ft waves to the east.

Unfortunately E/SE winds are due tomorrow morning, moderate to fresh in nature and stronger into the afternoon, with Wednesday coming in a little cleaner as winds ease and tending more E-E/SE.

It won’t be perfect and the exposed beaches to the east are likely to be still too chunky with easing sets from 6ft+ or so, 4ft to the east.

Thursday is a tricky one as early variable winds freshen quickly from the S/SW thanks to an approaching trough. Early looks to be 2ft on the Surf Coast magnets with 3-4ft sets to the east.

The trough will actually spawn off a strong polar low that’s currently south-west of Western Australia, projecting north through today. A fetch of W/SW-SW gales will be generated through our western swell window, generating a small to moderate sized mid-period W/SW swell for Friday afternoon, coming in at 3ft+ on the Surf Coast magnets and 4-6ft to the east.

Unfortunately SW winds look to linger Friday in the wake of the trough on Thursday, with an outside chance of early W/NW winds on the Surf Coast but the swell will yet to be in.

Into the weekend, a reinforcing mid-period SW swell to a similar size seen Friday is due, produced by a distant but strong polar storm on the backside of the low projecting towards Western Australia. Winds still look dicey and strong from the W/SW-SW as a much more significant and exciting Southern Ocean frontal progression develops south-west of us.

A strong node of the Long Wave Trough will bring with it a broad, strong Southern Ocean frontal progression, with multiple significant polar storms due to project up and into us from Friday evening through the weekend.

This looks to generate a large run of SW groundswell from Sunday afternoon through Tuesday next week along with favourable westerly winds. More on this Wednesday and Friday.