Victorian Surf Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 25th August)

Best Days: Today ahead of the change, beaches Monday and Tuesday, Surf Coast next Friday ahead of the change

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Mod-large W/SW swell building this afternoon but with a fresh S'ly change, peaking from the SW tomorrow AM
• Light-mod E/SE tending E-E/NE winds tomorrow AM, then mod-fresh SE mid-late PM
• Easing swell Sun with freshening SE winds
• Futher drop in swell Mon with E/NE tending NE winds ahead of weak sea breezes
• Small, inconsistent mid-period SW swell for Tue, easing Wed
• Freshening N winds Tue (N/NW to the west, N/NE to the east)
• W/NW tending strong SW Wed PM
• Small Thu with W/NW-W winds
• Small-mod sized mid-period W/SW swell Fri with NW tending S/SW winds mid-late PM

Recap

Wednesday's large, strong swell front arrived right on cue into the mid-afternoon, with a visible increase in the size, consistency and energy seen from about 2-2:30pm on the Surf Coast, building set by set and reaching an easy 10ft just before dark. Conditions were great topping off one of the best winters in recent memory.

Not to be outdone, yesterday was still 6ft+ and easing with excellent conditions persisting all day west of Melbourne. To the east selected reefs fired with the exposed beaches being too large and wind affected.

This morning we've got smaller but fun 3ft waves on the Surf Coast, 4-5ft to the east under favourable winds ahead of a trough and freshening S'ly change early-mid afternoon. A late increase in moderate-large sized W/SW swell is due but more on this below.

Perfection yesterday (Romy)

This weekend and next week (Aug 26 – Sep 1)

The second rapidly deepening low pressure system this week formed just west of us yesterday, dipping south-east with it now sitting under Tasmania. A pre-frontal fetch of gale to severe-gale W/NW winds in our western swell window are now being followed by similar strength W/SW winds in our south-western swell window, producing a moderate-large W/SW tending SW swell for later today and tomorrow morning.

We're looking at surf to 4-5ft tomorrow morning on the Surf Coast (likely the rare bigger bomb magnets), with 6ft to occasionally 8ft sets to the east, easing through the day.

Unfortunately, as touched on in the forecast updates earlier this week, we'll see tricky winds, with a light to moderate E/SE tending E-E/NE breeze in the morning, tending E/SE-SE into the mid-late afternoon. Options with this size of swell and local winds will be very limited.

Sunday looks average as well with freshening SE winds as the swell continues to slowly drop in size.

Monday and Tuesday still look fun across the beaches as winds shift E/NE-NE, ahead of weak mid-late afternoon sea breezes on the former, with Tuesday seeing local offshore winds out of the N'th, freshening through the day (N/NE to the east and N/NW to the west).

Easing 2ft to occasionally 3ft sets are due on the Surf Coast magnets, 4ft to the east on Monday, while a small reinforcing mid-period SW swell from a short burst of W/NW gales moving along the polar shelf is due Tuesday. This should maintain inconsistent 2ft to occasionally 3ft sets on the Surf Coast and 4ft sets to the east.

The rest of the week looks generally slow with no significant Southern Ocean storms due to fire up this weekend and into early next week. We can expect the Surf Coast to hover around the 2ft range with 3-4ft sets to the east along with tricky winds, slightly bigger Friday with a new mid-period W/SW swell.

A morning W/NW breeze will give into a strong SW change around midday on Wednesday, holding from the W/NW-W most of the day Thursday while Friday looks mostly clean again on the Surf Coast ahead of a trough and mid-late afternoon S/SW change.

Saturday looks clean again with moderate levels of mid-period W/SW swell persisting, but we'll have a closer look at this on Monday. Have a great weekend!