Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 21st January)

Best Days: Exposed beaches Sunday, Monday afternoon, Tuesday, Wednesday late morning Surf Coast, Thursday and Friday mornings Surf Coast

Recap

A continuation of poor surf with a slowly mix of easing groundswell and windswell yesterday and today, not bad condition wise on the Surf Coast yesterday afternoon and early this morning.

This weekend and next week (Feb 22 – 28)

Moving into the weekend, and tomorrow will remain average to poor with the swell dropping further in size as winds linger onshore out of the S/SE-SE. Try the beaches on the Mornington Peninsula for bumpy 3ft +waves, 1-2ft on the Surf Coast and poor.

The offshore wind and cleaner conditions for Sunday are still on track with a light N/NE'ly, tending variable early afternoon ahead of a S'ly sea breeze.

We'll be looking at a mix of background swells only to 2ft on the sets across the Surf Coast and hopefully hanging around 3ft+ on the Mornington Peninsula, easing through the day.

Looking at next week and we've got a lot more swell activity on the cards, firstly in the form of an inconsistent, long-period SW groundswell mixed in with some mid-period energy on Monday and Tuesday,

A strong but distant polar low generated the long-period energy mid-week, with the remnants of this low now generating a broad fetch of strong W/SW winds while continuing slowly east, well south of WA today, weakening further over the weekend.

This will produce some more consistent mid-period energy in between the long-period sets, with both filling in Monday and peaking into the afternoon.

We should see the Surf Coast building to 3-4ft into the afternoon, though inconsistent, with 5-6ft+ sets to the east, easing slowly Tuesday from 3ft and 4-5ft+ respectively.

Winds are still looking onshore but workable with a light to moderate S/SE'ly Monday, not really increasing in strength through the day. So the afternoon should hopefully offer some decent waves for those with lower expectations.

Tuesday looks good on the beaches with an E/NE-NE breeze holding until early afternoon and then going variable ahead of mid-late afternoon sea breezes and then late SW change.

Come Wednesday morning a W/NW offshore should create clean conditions on the Surf Coast but the swell will be at a low point and back to 2ft or so ahead of a strong SW change and increase in new swell through the afternoon.

As touched on in Wednesday's notes, a strengthening node of the Long Wave Trough will move in from the west next week, bringing with it a flurry of polar frontal activity.

The first will swing in from south-west of WA on Monday and generate a pre-frontal fetch of strong to gale-force W/NW wind, followed by post-frontal strong SW winds as it projects up and into us Tuesday and Wednesday. This is then expected to be followed by a strengthening front, generating a fetch of SW gales on top the active sea state created before it.

What we should see is a building mid-period W/SW swell on Wednesday ahead of SW energy on Thursday, easing ahead of a stronger SW groundswell pulse Friday.

Size wise the Surf Coast at this stage looks to come in around the 4ft range on the sets Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, 6ft+ to the east and likely bigger Friday (EC shows a much stronger back up swell).

Winds as discussed above will go onshore Wednesday as the swell builds. Back to the W/NW on Thursday ahead of the secondary front and possibly W/NW again Friday morning. We'll have a closer look at the outlook for mid-late next week on Monday though. Have a great weekend!