Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 17th August)

Best Days: Protected spots later Thursday and Friday, for the desperate Saturday, Monday exposed beaches

Recap

Poor conditions all weekend with clea, tiny waves on the Surf Coast Saturday, a touch bigger Sunday though onshore and deteriorating.

Today the Surf Coast has cleaned back up with small, inconsistent 1-2ft sets, bumpy and poor to the east.

This week and weekend (Aug 18 - 23)

We've got a couple more days of tiny, clean waves on the cards ahead of a building mix of windy swells into the end of the week and weekend.

Today's small pulse of swell will drop tomorrow and a moderate to fresh NW breeze will favour the Surf Coast, though it'll be tiny.

Wednesday looks minimal in size as well, with the increase in size shown on the charts for the afternoon likely to be too west to generate any size for the Surf Coast as a morning and strong N'ly breeze shifts W/NW.

The strengthening and shift in wind will be linked to a strong though weakening mid-latitude low moving in from the west, with it expected to push across us Thursday. As it does so it'll drag a polar front and cold air up behind it.

The change on Thursday will see strengthening W/SW winds aimed through our swell window with a building winswelly tending mid-period swell due Thursday, reaching 3ft+ later in the day on the Surf Coast (only 1-2ft) through the morning, and building to 6ft on the Mornington Peninsula. This will be along with strong W-W/NW winds.

The polar front should project a stronger fetch of W/SW-SW winds up through our south-western swell window Wednesday afternoon through Thursday, but then the formation of a broader low will see stronger gale-force S/SE winds projected through our southern swell window Friday. This will actually be just within the Surf Coast's swell window but not ideal for the Mornington Peninsula owing to the shadowing effects of Tasmania.

The only issue with the low forming is that winds will shift more onshore Saturday when the S'ly swell fills in, but coming back to Friday, winds should hold out of the W/NW though strong most of the day with building SW energy from 3-4ft in the morning on the Surf Coast to 4-5ft later, 6ft to possibly 8ft to the east on the Mornington Peninsula later.

Saturday should see similar if not possibly a touch more size on the Surf Coast (4-5ft+) with 6ft to occasionally 8ft sets to the east along with deteriorating and strong SW winds. There may be a window of dawn W'ly winds but keep your expectations low.

It's also worth pointing out most of this swell energy will be not overly lined up and a bit weaker than quality groundswell events.

Moving into Sunday the size is due to ease fairly quickly and in the wake of the low moving east, conditions will be average with a moderate to fresh but easing S/SW-S'ly breeze.

By the time winds swing back offshore on Monday, all the size will be gone. The longer term outlook then looks like a return to small swells with favourable winds, but we'll have a closer look at this Wednesday.