Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday 9th June)

Best Days: Friday morning on the beaches, Wednesday onwards next week on the beaches

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Large, stormy S/SE windswell tomorrow AM, easing into the PM with strong S/SE winds (abating rapidly near dark)
• Easing S/SE-SE windswell Fri with an inconsistent background SW swell. Light E/SE winds east of Melbourne in the AM, mod-fresh S into the PM
• Easing SW swell Sat with fresh W/SW winds (W/NW early on the Surf Coast)
• Near flat Sun with W/NW-W winds
• Inconsistent W/SW groundswell for Wed with E/NE-NE winds

Recap

Monday afternoon's better pulse of mid-period SW swell didn’t hang in as well as expected yesterday morning, with the Surf Coast easing back from an inconsistent 3ft with 3-5ft sets to the east under favourable offshore winds.

Winds shifted westerly into the afternoon and strengthened, favouring protected spots ahead of today's stronger S'ly change. Winds were lighter east of Melbourne early, but this window has now vanished. We've got a mix of S'ly windswell and new, W/SW groundswell but finding a quality wave will be hard.

This week and next (Jun 10 - 18)

Cold, moist air spinning clockwise around the broad low (darker blue-green = very deep/high convection and cold air)

The deep cold pool linked to the change in weather and snowfall across our mountains is now set in.

We'll see it linger and dominate our weather through the end of the week and into the weekend.

During today the low will strengthen to our east, bringing strong to near gale-force S-S/SE winds through Bass Strait, whipping up a larger, stormy increase in swell through the day.

The low should weaken slowly tomorrow, resulting in winds still blowing strong through most of the day out of the S/SE, easing right back in strength into the evening, leaving lighter E/SE winds across the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island Friday morning (shifting moderate-fresh S from late morning).

Swell wise, the stormy energy out of the S/SE should start to ease through the day from a large 5-6ft+ on the Surf Coast tomorrow morning, 4-6ft to the east, fading rapidly into the evening as winds in Bass Strait abate.

Come Friday morning the S/SE-SE swell will be on the way out and some background, long-range SW swell energy should provide some OK options on the beaches. A peaky 3ft to possibly 4ft wave is due on the Mornington Peninsula Friday morning, though very inconsistent, with the SE windswell easing on the Surf Coast from a bumpy 2ft to possibly 3ft.

As we move into the weekend we'll see the low starting to push east towards New Zealand, dragging up strong W/SW winds behind it on Saturday (likely W/NW early on the Surf Coast).

Size wise, there doesn't look to be much on offer at all with the long-range swell easing from 1ft to maybe 2ft wave on the Surf Coast, a bit bigger to the east but choppy.

There'll be no swell left into Sunday and a W/NW tending variable breeze will create clean conditions in protected spots.

Unfortunately the start of next week is slow ahead of a new, inconsistent W/SW groundswell arriving late Tuesday, peaking through Wednesday. The source of this swell will be a very distant storm, firing up west of the Heard Island region tomorrow morning, then pushing east while generating a fetch of strong to gale-force W'ly tending W/SW winds. The storm will break down south-west of Western Australia resulting in a fair bit of swell decay and drop in inconsistency.

Size wise, the Surf Coast should see very inconsistent 2-3ft sets on the swell magnets, 3-4ft to the east with the odd 5ft bomb. One positive is with the storm being so distant from us, we should see E/NE-NE winds Wednesday morning, holding out of the E into the afternoon.

Beyond this a couple of similar swells are due into the end of the week and weekend with favourable winds, but we'll have a closer look at this on Friday.