Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 19th October)

Best Days: Both coasts Thursday, Surf Coast Friday morning, keen surfers Sunday, Monday and Tuesday mornings both coasts

Recap

Small clean waves on the Surf Coast most of yesterday to 1-2ft around Torquay, kicking a little stronger late in the day.

Today the new large inconsistent W/SW groundswell is breaking across the state with great waves on the Surf Coast under offshore NW winds. The swell is a little under expectations with farily consistent 4-5ft waves and rare bigger ones. We should see the swell hold most of the day as winds tend variable.

This week and weekend (Oct 20 - 23)

Today's strong W/SW groundswell will ease off overnight and drop further through tomorrow across the state.

With the size coming in a little under expectations this morning, a slight downgrade in the size has been made, with the Surf Coast due to ease from 3-4ft tomorrow morning and 5-6ft on the Mornington Peninsula.

Conditions will be best on the beaches with a fresh N/NE tending N'ly wind (likely tending N/NW across the Surf Coast into the afternoon.

Friday will be smaller again with leftover 2-3ft sets on the Surf Coast and 4-5ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula.

Try and surf during the morning on the Surf Coast as a W/SW change is due at some stage through the day (likely around midday).

Unfortunately the weekend looks average with a secondary S'ly change due to move through before dawn Saturday, spoiling a new mix of SW and W/SW energy.

Sets to 3ft are expected on the Surf Coast with 4-6ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula Saturday and Sunday morning, easing into Sunday afternoon. Lighter S/SE winds are due on Sunday so keen surfers may find some OK waves.

Next week onwards (Oct 24 onwards)

As talked about in Monday's updates, a couple of good groundswells are due across the state next week.

The first for Monday/Tuesday will be the smallest, generated by a broad and healthy pre-frontal fetch of W/NW gales developing south-west of WA and pushing towards the polar shelf from later this week.

We should see a moderate sized SW groundswell from this system building Monday afternoon on the Surf Coast, reaching 3ft on the sets, holding a similar size Tuesday morning. The Mornington Peninsula will offer larger 4-6ft sets.

A more variable breeze on Monday morning should create clean conditions across both coasts ahead of SE breezes, with light local offshore winds Tuesday morning.

A larger mix of W/SW and SW groundswell are due into Thursday and Friday though from a vigorous polar low firing up in the Heard Island region Sunday, generating a slow moving fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds while pushing east towards us.

A long-period and inconsistent SW groundswell will be generated by this storm, building through Thursday and peaking later in the day, with some reinforcing W/SW swell Friday from a secondary polar front moving in mid-week. More on this Friday though.

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