Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 1st January)

Best Days: Surf Coast Tuesday morning, Surf Coast Thursday morning, both regions Friday morning, beaches to the east early Saturday

Recap

Happy New Year! The surf was great over the weekend with a building mix of W/SW swells Saturday, small and clean on the Surf Coast through the morning, strong into the afternoon.

Sunday was the pick though with clean pumping 3-4ft waves on the Surf Coast, less than ideal to the east.

Today a reinforcing W/SW swell is keeping wave heights up across the state, with good conditions on the Surf Coast.

Today’s Forecaster Notes are brought to you by Rip Curl

This week and weekend (Jan 2 - 7)

Our good run of swell looks to continue through most of this week.

Today's reinforcing W/SW groundswell should reach a peak this afternoon/evening and ease off slowly through tomorrow from 3ft+ on the Surf Coast and 5-6ft on the Mornington Peninsula, ahead of one final pulse of SW swell into Wednesday.

This is being generated by a relatively weak but favourably tracking polar front from south of WA up towards us over the next two days.

The Surf Coast should hang around 3ft, with 4-6ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula all of Wednesday before easing from a similar size Thursday morning.

Winds will remain favourable for the Surf Coast tomorrow with an early W/NW breeze, tending W/SW-SW late morning, while Wednesday looks dicey as the front linked to the reinforcing swell moves through. The Torquay region is likely to see a dawn W'ly breeze, but this will shift S/SW soon after.

Light and more variable winds are expected on Thursday (though with a tendency to the west) which isn't too favourable for the beaches to the east of Melbourne.

Friday looks much better with a light NE wind across the the coast and fun easing sets from 3-4ft on the Mornington Peninsula, 2ft Surf Coast.

Into the weekend we'll see the surf continuing to ease and the exposed beaches across the state will be OK early with a N/NE breeze but only fading 2ft sets.

Longer term there's nothing too significant on the cards with a small weak pulse of W/SW swell for later Sunday/Monday but with S'ly winds. Therefore make the most of the current surf.