Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday January 10th)

Best Days: Sunday morning, Monday morning, early Wednesday exposed beaches, Thursday morning Surf Coast

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Small to tiny tomorrow with local offshore winds ahead of sea breezes
• Moderate sized, inconsistent W/SW groundswell building Sun, peaking into the PM, easing slowly Mon
• Early N/NE winds to the east Sun AM, light W/NW to the west before shifting SW mid-AM and then strengthening from the S/SW into the PM
• Light-mod S winds Mon, freshening
• Mod S winds Tue, freshening
• Inconsistent long-range W/SW groundswell building slowly Wed, peaking Thu AM
• Strong NE tending N then NW and then SW winds on Wed
• Moderate sized W/SW groundswell building Thu PM
• Early strong W/NW tending SW winds Thu
• Strong S/SW tending SE winds Fri with a building windswell

Recap

The exposed beaches were fun yesterday with clean 2ft+ waves to the east, a peaky 1-2ft on the Surf Coast magnets, smaller today and with less favourable winds.

This weekend and next week (Jan 11 - 17)

Tomorrow will remain small to tiny and light, local offshore winds will create clean conditions ahead of sea breezes.

We then look at Sunday and our new, building W/SW groundswell. There’s been no change to the expected size and timing, with the Surf Coast expected to reach an inconsistent 3ft+ through the afternoon, 5-6ft to the east but the timing of a trough and onshore change now looks earlier.

The Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island region should see dawn N/NE winds, variable W/NW to the west but by mid-morning winds are due to shift SW across the Surf Coast and more N/NW to the east, freshening across all locations from the S/SW into the afternoon.

With this in mind the early surf is the pick for all locations Sunday but expect less size than what’s due into the afternoon.

The groundswell is due to start easing slowly on Monday from 3ft and 4-5ft respectively to the west and east of Melbourne and conditions will be bumpy with a light to moderate S’ly wind. It won’t be perfect but still worth a surf with the slightly bumpy conditions.

Tuesday might see a touch more strength to the southerly breeze, moderate through the morning and with smaller surf again, bottoming out on Wednesday morning as winds strengthen from the NE, tip NW and then SW thanks to a high riding low moving in from the west.

Swell wise the Surf Coast will be small and consisting mostly of SE windswell Wednesday while the Mornington Peninsula looks to build from 2-3ft to 4-5ft as a new, long-period W/SW groundswell fills in. This is being generated by a strong but distant low that’s currently moving east, south of the Indian Ocean towards us and a peak is due Thursday morning to a very infrequent 2-3ft on the Surf Coast and 4-6ft to the east.

At the same time, the low moving in from the west is due to drop south-east and through our swell window while weakening on Thursday, bringing with it a short-lived spike of W’ly swell into the afternoon.

A fetch of gales will likely produce 4ft sets on the Surf Coast after lunch with 6ft+ waves to the east but with strengthening SW winds following early morning W/NW winds. The Surf Coast will be worth a look ahead of the change but very inconsistent.

Now, the remnants of the low dipping south-east on Thursday will reintensify off the Gippsland Coast Friday/Saturday, bringing with it strong to gale-force E/SE-SE winds and a solid, stormy SE windswell event that may persist from Friday through the weekend. We’ll have a closer look at this on Monday though. Have a great weekend!