Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 21st December)

Best Days: This morning, Saturday morning on the beaches

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• New W/SW swell building tomorrow, easing Wed with strengthening onshore winds (possibly variable dawn some locations)
• Weaker W/SW tending SW swell building Thu, peaking Fri as onshore winds persist, cleaner Sat morning but small

Recap

Cleaner conditions were seen on the Surf Coast Saturday morning but with a weak, small swell, while the beaches offered better waves yesterday with a building S/SW swell and workable onshore breeze.

This morning conditions have cleaned up nicely on the exposed beaches with the S/SW swell offering inconsistent 3ft sets.

This week and weekend (Dec 22 - 26)

Make the most of today's clean conditions and fun waves on the beaches, as from tomorrow, conditions will deteriorate as a trough pushes in from the west, followed by a strong high.

This will swing winds onshore, spoiling a new W/SW swell that’s due to build tomorrow, slower for the rest of the week with no improvement in conditions until next weekend.

The Southern Annular Mode, an index linked to how far north or south of normal the westerly storm track sits is strong positive, keeping the storm track retracted to the south and subdued.

This also sees high pressure move in across our main swell windows, putting a block on any major activity while also bringing onshore winds from the south to south-eastern quadrant.

So looking at tomorrow and a deepening trough will bring strengthening SE tending SW winds, creating poor conditions from dawn, while into the afternoon our new W/SW swell is due to fill in. There’s an outside chance of variable winds at dawn east of Melbourne but the swell will be at a low point and likely only 2ft.

The new swell was generated by a good, though weakening low through our far-medium swell window last Friday through the weekend, with a building trend due tomorrow, reaching 3ft+ late afternoon on the Surf Coast and 5-6ft on the Mornington Peninsula, mixed in with local windswell.

Unfortunately Wednesday now looks poor across all locations as the swell eases with strong though abating SW winds. There’s a very slim chance for dawn W/SW winds around Torquay, but I wouldn’t plan around it.

Into the end of the week a new mid-period W/SW tending SW swell will build through Thursday, hold Friday, generated by a weak frontal progression moving in from the Southern Ocean over the coming days.

A weak fetch of W/NW followed by W/SW winds should produce a slight kick back to 2-3ft on the Surf Coast swell magnets, 4ft+ to the east, though winds will remain fresh and onshore from the SW tending S/SW Thursday, S/SE on Friday. There’s a slightly better chance for an early W’ly on the Surf Coast Thursday morning but again this will be when we fall in betweens swells with weak 2ft waves for the desperate.

Moving into the weekend, better conditions are due on the beaches as winds shift to the east though with small, leftover waves from Friday. The Surf Coast looks 2ft and the Mornington Peninsula 3ft+ or so.

An approaching trough looks to swing winds from NW to SW Sunday but with no new swell.

Longer term a new mid-period swell is likely early next week but with onshore S’ly winds, with a possible stronger swell late week, but more on this in the coming updates.