Great Surf Coast tomorrow, more options Wednesday and a good weekend ahead
Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 9th July)
Best Days: Surf Coast Tuesday, both coasts Wednesday, exposed beaches Thursday, Saturday, Sunday morning
Recap
It's great to be back after my sojourn around the Basque Country, if you get a chance it's more than worth a trip.
Looking back on the weekend and there was plenty of surf on offer with a large building swell, cleanest Saturday morning but largest yesterday with less than ideal winds. Protected spots on the Surf Coast and around Western Port faired best.
This morning we've got cleaner conditions on the Surf Coast with a lighter more favourable W'ly wind and large surf continuing around 6ft as a reinforcing long-period SW groundswell filled in, bigger and messy on the Mornington Peninsula. The swell will ease through the day as SW winds kick in everywhere.
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This morning's large reinforcing SW groundswell should ease back through this afternoon and the buoy observations off Cape Sorell are already trending downwards, with smaller surf due tomorrow.
Conditions will be great on the Surf Coast though with a W/NW tending NW offshore wind, holding into the afternoon and likely easing. This will create a full day of fun surf with easing sets back from the 4ft range, bigger and more to 6ft to the east, with increasing options into the afternoon.
A new long-period SW groundswell is due to arrive near dark tomorrow and slow the easing trend into Wednesday morning. This was generated yesterday by a strong but unfavourably aligned polar low south of WA. A fetch of pre-frontal gale to severe-gale W/NW winds were generated briefly in our swell window though we should see sets hanging around 3ft+ on the Surf Coast Wednesday morning, easing into the afternoon and down from 2ft to possibly 3ft Thursday at magnets.
The Mornington Peninsula should see 4-5ft+ waves Wednesday morning, back from the 4ft range Thursday.
Winds will continue to improve for more exposed spots on Wednesday with the Surf Coast seeing N/NW tending variable winds, while the Mornington Peninsula will likely see early N/NW winds tending more N'ly through the morning and lighter N/NE into the afternoon.
Thursday is a little funky as a surface trough moves in from the west bringing variable (likely local offshore winds) ahead of a weak S/SE change.
The change will be as weak as to possibly keep winds variable into Friday morning, light into the afternoon but with small fading levels of swell.
The weekend is shaping up to be really fun across both regions, with the arrival of a strong new long-period SW groundswell on Saturday with favourable winds.
Currently a strong mid-latitude front is sitting in the southern Indian Ocean, but this will drift south-southeast and into the Southern Ocean this evening while deepening into a polar low.
A fetch of gale to severe-gale W/SW winds will be produced through our south-western swell window as the low stalls tomorrow evening before slowly pushing east on Wednesday.
The slow moving nature will help produce a moderate to large long-period SW groundswell with an arrival on dark Friday ahead of a peak Saturday morning.
The Surf Coast should see strong 4-5ft sets, with 6ft+ waves on the Mornington Peninsula, easing slowly through the day and smaller into Sunday.
Winds are looking favourable at this stage as an approaching trough squeezes a high sitting over us and between a Tasman Low. This looks to bring N-N/NW winds Saturday that may persist into Sunday morning before shifting more NW through the day. We'll have a closer look at this Wednesday though.
Comments
This paywall kinda sucks!
Hi mate, there's an article about it here:
https://www.swellnet.com/news/swellnet-dispatch/2018/06/26/walled-and-rise
Ok fair enough. Makes sense.
Thanks for the link btw and keep up the good work
Thanks mate, really appreciate the support.
It's 28 cents a day ... just don't drink two craft IPAs this month and you'll be able to afford it.
It’s a change, I’ll agree McGusto. 2 coffees a month. We’ll learn to live with it.
Well, now that I need to pay in order to continue collerating, I've decided to pay up and post my first comment. Hi, I'm Walk around G, hope all of you frothers are well!
Ben how confident are you of the 6+ on saturday down MP? Hoping it comes in under as that is going to max out the beachies.
I'll let Craig answer that... :D
Very at this stage, but the swell will ease steadily through the afternoon, so might come into play late. Morning maxing on the beaches but.
Hey Nick, Not a subscriber. Just wish the headline on the forecast was not so misleading.
"Great" oh FFS are you kidding? It's wonky as all fuck at the moment and still onshore. Winds are going to be very light all night so it's not going to line up well. Any muppet would know it will be clean but very ordinary, but hey if you want to pay for forecasts, be my guest.
I figure the "great" adjective is designed to get people to cough up the cash rather than provide an accurate forecast.
yeah listen to vic local, surf coast will be rubbish tomorrow no one go (sarcasm emoji)
like
Even you would know how quickly the Surf Coast improves, especially when winds are coming around from the W/SW.
They're already west and will be moderate not light and variable.
Well Craig, since you're up in Sydney and I'm down here I will give you an update about the surf and weather. I took the hound for two walks along the cliffs today. One early and one late. I didn't see anyone in the water from Boobs to Torquay Pt. There may have been some crew in the water at winki but it was so jumbled up, I couldn't tell from my usual lookout spot. The ocean is a mess and there's no wind in Torquay. A quick check of the cape Otway obs, says it's still SW down there. There's an accurate conditions report on the coast. Do you want to change your forecast (from Sydney) or are you still happy to tell everyone it's going to be great tomorrow?
'Great Surf Coast tomorrow'
Yep.........gunna be a fucken crowded nightmare round these parts tomorrow.
Cheers.........
Hi Crag. Your forecast is so blurry I can barely read it. Please fix this asap as possible.
LOL....Subbed :thumbsup:
I kmow its a week away but models are saying 15-18ft 19sec. Would love too see that with the big tides. Please become a reality
Outback sorra?
Well folks, there it is. My forecast has come in spot on and it's not "great". Clean but wonky. If it was "great" there would be more than 1 person out at Jan Juc.
Serious Question crowd net. Where do you guys get off putting up the following report at 6am? "Dawn Report: Looking really fun out there this morning with the swell cleaning right up while also continuing to drop from yesterday. Waves across all locations from the beaches to reefs. Enjoy. " At 6am the only thing it's "looking" is really dark. It's not a report at all. It's a guess.
Jeez, you're a bore.
Dawn report was posted at 7:18am, not 6:00am.
And if there's only one person in the water, why are you whinging?
Go and run your corporate surf school DicVocal. It's getting really tedious.
Vic Local is not too proud to admit a mistake. Mis-read the time stamp on that dawn report. As for "corporate surf school", that's a complete joke mate. I've taken ten times as many people barefoot bowling and 20 x the number of people on wine tours. I guess I run a "corporate bowling club" and am in the wine industry too. At the end of the day, my forecast was spot on and the "great" tag was wildly optimistic.
I'm in WA and have no specific interest in the surf coast forecast but the comments here are gold
Agreed. The most vocal proponent of overcrowding runs a friggen surf school! Lord help me!
No the-spleen-2. Vic Local doesn't run a surf school. It's complete bullshit spread by the owner of this site who has clearly looked through my websites.
The full exchange is here, from three weeks ago: https://www.swellnet.com/reports/forecaster-notes/victoria/2018/06/20/pl...
To quote: "Jeez mate, you're downplaying things - your website has three local surf tourism products related to Torquay (one of 'em even states that you'll take people to Bancoora!), and another website says that you offer guided adventure surf trips to Indonesia. Doesn't your corporate profile also state that you worked in the surf industry for ten years?"
Kinda ironic how despite being quite an active poster in that thread, you immediately ceased commenting on Swellnet after that.
"Doesn't your corporate profile also state that you worked in the surf industry for ten years? No Ben, it doesn't. It says I worked in the ski and snow industry for ten years. (you dropped out the ski reference didn't you) And for the record the vast majority was in the ski industry and the surf industry stuff was involved in curating surf memorabilia.
I'm happy to put up a link to my website here and let the punters judge for themselves whether or not I work in the surf industry. They would see I don't run a corporate surf school too. The thing is the punters will also judge your behaviour here mate.
I raise some valid points about your forecasts and their impact on crowds (with a sledgehammer approach) and you respond with a smear campaign with highly edited quotes and flat out lies. Shall we let the punters judge, or do you want to correct the record about my business. And as for ceasing comments, I was busy organising a big conference. That's what I do, but you'd know that. You've gone through my website.
Your own website says "after working in the surf and ski industries for 10 years"...
How about the Surf Forecast articles you've written for other websites, advising of strike missions to Indo and the like, recommending a bunch of under-the-radar locations to surf?
According to your philosophy, shouldn't you only be able to issue those kinds of surf forecasts if you're living in Indo?
BTW, I enjoyed the accusation of me waging a 'smear campaign' against a still-anonymous Torquay punter. The political denunciation is delicious.
your rather negative vic local.
Gary is impressed with this swellnet subscription. You guys don't mention it in the brochure but it's amazing for Gary to get detailed on-the-ground crowd reports from Vic Local!
Gary wonders how long Vic Local has been on the team, he's clearly an inspired choice for a surf reporter: I guess you'd get plenty of time to report on conditions when you're showing a dozen backpackers how to 'pop up' on the sand every 2 hours.
It is, however, a double edged sword: Gary can understand how that one surfer out at Juc would be real pissed with swellnet. Enjoying a solo surf and then all of a sudden a bunch of people rock up after seeing Vic Local's comments that it's uncrowded.
Whats your website?
An interactive experience with Gary is available via a number of different cams, which are typically only online for short periods before the authorities deem them too hot to handle.
For starters why don't you try:
www.EnterTheG.com
www.GthatsGood.com
www.BiggerThanGsus.com
Gary G. Cam Boy trawling for business on a surf forum. Not sure I agree with your marketing strategy but wish you the best of luck with your hobby / business.
Ben or Craig could one of you guys please answer nickbone’s question about the swell next week when you get a chance.
Is it just windswell or something contaminating the buoy or is it gunna be a thumping swell on the way?
Hopefully it’s a legit swell because I’ll be heading over to snake the bejeesus out of Viclocal lol lol lol
Windy tv -waves chart for next week ...Faark
Now that the tide's dropping (high was 8:30am, doesn't often favour great TQ surf), wave quality is starting to improve across the reefs as winds have been offshore all night. Lines are clean and straight, sun's out, looks super fun.
I gotta get that surf club window cleaned too.
Doesn't 13th Beach look inviting. Why is there no-one out?
There is reports of a dead whale on the 13th stretch. Not sure what end or what the plan is to remove it
Whilst doing a spot of internet lurking, Gary couldn't help notice that Vic Local's absence was conspicuously aligned with Craig's holiday.
Could they be one and the same?
A Clark Kent / Superman situation?
Clark Kent always came across to Gary as being quite mild mannered. Vic Local seems a bit crankier. Perhaps he's from a different part of the Kent family - a Grumpy Kent, if you will.
Check out goofyfoot's comment about hoping a long range forecast comes true so he can come down and snake people. And some people wonder why the locals get the shits with this site.
Just make sure you log back into your 'Craig' profile before you go answering forecast related questions. Really impressive how you can manage these dual accounts so effectively. Hope the holiday in the basque country was great.
Hahahah
Not snake “people”, this will be a targeted attack on one (un)happy little vegemite..
No just kidding mate, can’t wait to share a few with ya
Its disappeared :( luckly i screenshotted for daydreaming purposes
Re thermalburn. I read on the delwp website: dead whale at 13th. Only small I think. Still full of oiley goodness though.
Yeah models are still moving around regarding next week's swells, but it was a mix of groundswell and mid-period/windswell. Still a good run shaping up with the Long Wave Trough coming to town.
Thanks Craig
Some quality waves around today and for what it’s worth the crowds I surfed with today( twice) were a piece of cake to deal with, very relaxed easy crowd!
Great to hear. All day offshores, great fun sized swell, easy 2x surf day today.
Yo Vic. Local,
I had great waves today at a SurfCoast Reef. 3-4', clean as, mellow friendly crew of half a dozen or so, plenty of sets. It's school holidays too.
As I've said before, you are a cunt.
But, ...... I like that!
Hahahah yes
Hang on. Ringmaster said it's "gunna be a fucken crowded nightmare round these parts tomorrow".
So it wasn't?
No it wasn't. Not at all. The 3 hour surf I had this morning at one of the more popular reefs around here maxed out at about a dozen.
Just trying to do my bit for our local surfing community to possibly deter a few more carloads fanging down here from all parts based on the headline for this (and previous) forecast articles.
Maybe do what someone above said and save all the information for your paid up subscribers and just title it 'Surfcoast Forecast'. Not 'Great Surfcoast tomorrow, more options Wednesday and a good weekend ahead'. Kinda defeats the purpose of asking them to stump up some coin when you put that out there for free.
Do you seriously think that crowds are dictated by (a) a single headline, and (b) a couple of overly reactive posts in the comments?
You can cherry pick the data as much as you want, but today’s numbers in the water suggests there is/was no cause and effect.
As confirmed by Tango a few weeks ago, I was in TQ a few days before Easter and scored fantastic waves to myself, not once, but twice (an iPhone photo from one of the sessions was WOTD a few weeks later). Several other surfs had less than half a dozen in the water. And this was with the entire WSL in town. All days were forecast well in advance, all sessions were between Juc and Bells.
A percentage of the crowd, yes.
Look.......for what it's worth I think you blokes have a good, slick website and for me personally I like to read the articles (dispatch?), check out photo spreads of various locales and sometimes get a laugh out of the forums.
I reckon if you put all your forecasting info behind a paywall including over descriptive headlines that would be the cherry on top! You wanted feedback and I'm giving you some.
........and maybe space the Vicco reports a bit futher apart! I might even be prepared to pay for that.
Thanks mate. I enjoy the discussion and banter too (even despite the occasional headache).
Swellnet is constantly evolving - and has so since day one - so despite continually walking a tight rope trying to find the right content/information balance, we're always happy to be transparent and discuss things out in the open.
Numbers were not heavy at all,i would call below average for the quality of waves .Skill level and a relaxed feel in the water made made it feel even less crowded! Maybe i just lucked in and timed it well and had a ripping surf :)
13th looked a bit wonky, i surfed a name point with 2-5 people. Sometimes you need to try harder to find the crowds than avoid them around here.
Mellow crowds? I was dropped in on 4 times. Up ya bum! N a dead whale has spoiled my plans for tomorrow...
Paddle to the inside, burn repeat.
Not too shabby..
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I guess it means its good? I can't keep up with what you young guys say anymore....