Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 28th December)

Best Days: Tuesday morning both coasts, Wednesday morning east of Melbourne and the beaches to the west, Thursday both coasts, Friday morning both coasts

Recap

A drop in swell with average conditions across the Mornington Peninsula Saturday morning and workably but bumpy 2-3ft waves on the Surf Coast.

Sunday was similar with a new mix of swells and workable W/SW winds on the Surf Coast through the morning.

Today winds continued from the S'th creating average conditions across both coasts with 2-3ft sets west of Melbourne and 3-5ft on the Mornington Peninsula.

This week (Dec 29 – Jan 1)

From tomorrow winds will improve with some good swell on the way for Wednesday and Thursday. Firstly, small 2ft waves should persist on the Surf Coast tomorrow with a small kick in swell, with 3-4ft+ sets on the Mornington Peninsula as winds become variable creating generally clean conditions. Get in before lunch as afternoon sea breezes will create poor conditions as the surf eases.

Into Wednesday a good new long-period W/SW groundswell is due, generated the last couple of days and into this morning by a vigorous front generating a fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/NW winds through our western swell window.

This swell should come in at a similar size to last Friday's but with more consistency. The Surf Coast should see good 3ft waves, with the odd bigger bomb at swell magnets like 13th Beach, with 6ft+ sets on the Mornington Peninsula.

Conditions will be clean and best east of Melbourne with an E/NE tending NE breeze, with the beaches west of Melbourne the pick, but best mid-late morning as surface conditions sort themselves out a bit.

Thursday looks great across both coasts as the swell starts to ease with local offshore winds and easing 3ft sets across exposed breaks on the Surf Coast (2-3ft most places) and 5-6ft on the Mornington Peninsula. There's only a slight chance of mid-late afternoon sea breezes, but more likely variable winds creating a good full day of waves.

Friday morning is expected to be smaller again with early light winds and clean conditions ahead of a fresh S'ly change as a surface trough moves in from the west.

Into the weekend conditions are looking poor as the surface trough stalls and strengthens off the Gippsland coast, aiming a fresh to strong fetch of SE winds into the coast.

Only small amounts of background SW groundswell are due, with the Surf Coast seeing more size from a building south-east windswell. We'll have a closer look at this on Wednesday though.