Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Wednesday April 23rd)

Best Days: Tomorrow, Friday, Sunday morning

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Mix of easing SW groundswell and small SE windswell tomorrow with mod-fresh N/NE-N winds, tending N-N/NW to the west through the day
• Moderate sized, inconsistent SW groundswell filling in Fri, peaking through the day
• Moderate N/NE-NE tending NW winds Fri
• Moderate SW tending fresher S/SW winds Sat with a moderate + sized, building SW swell
• Slowly easing SW swell Sun with moderate W/NW winds, tending strong S/SW from late AM/midday
• Building S/SW swell Mon with gusty S winds
• Smaller Tue with fresh S/SW winds, tending SE Wed

Recap

We saw our new mix of SW swells building through yesterday but conditions were a mess and poor across most locations thanks to gusty onshore winds that slowly eased through the day.

Today winds are around to the south-east and conditions are again poor with limited options state wide with the size of the swell.

This week and weekend (Apr 24 - 27)

The rise in size the last two days has been thanks to the arrival of dual SW groundswells, but the energy has since peaked and we should see the size backing off through tomorrow as winds improve. This is thanks to the trough linked to our current spell of onshore winds sliding up the NSW coast, shifting winds around to the north.

A moderate to fresh N-N/NE wind is due all day east of Melbourne with N tending N/NW winds to the west along with an easing mix of SE windswell and SW swell across the Surf Coast to 3ft+ across the magnets, 5ft or so to the east.

Come Friday we should see a new, inconsistent SW groundswell filling in, with it generated by a distant but strong fetch of severe-gale W’ly winds on the polar shelf, east of Heard Island earlier this week. 

The swell is due to build through the day but in by early with the Surf Coast coming in at 2-3ft through the morning before pulsing to 3ft to occasionally 4ft through the day on the magnets. Locations to the east should build to 5-6ft and local winds now look a little N/NE-NE through the morning before shifting NW into the afternoon. This will see the beaches perform best early, with the Surf Coast improving as the day progresses.

Come Saturday, a trough moving in during the early morning looks to bring moderate SW tending fresher S/SW winds, with the chance of an early W’ly for the Surf Coast looking unlikely at this stage. 

Swell wise, our building mid-period SW swell energy is still on the cards, with an initial small polar low that’s currently east of the Heard Island region due to project a fetch of strong to sub-gale-force W/SW winds up and towards us over the coming days. While not overly strong the persistent nature and track are good, with a moderate + sized mid-period SW swell due from this source Saturday, building through the day ahead of a peak overnight.

A smaller front generating some additional W/NW winds through our swell window should slow the easing trend Sunday but size wise we should see Saturday’s swell building to 3-5ft on the Surf Coast into the afternoon with 6ft+ sets to the east, easing slowly from the 4ft and 6ft range respectively west and east of Melbourne Sunday morning.

Winds on Sunday look much better through the morning, shifting back to the W/NW before strengthening from the SW later morning/middle of the day as a trough clips the region.

This will unfortunately leave S’ly winds into Monday along with some new, moderate sized S/SW swell from the earlier stages of the frontal system attached to the trough. Quality wise it’s not great so make the most of Sunday morning.

Into next week, high pressure will slowly fill in from the west swinging winds from the S/SW-S on Tuesday to the SE Wednesday, with conditions not really improving for the beaches until Thursday/Friday. More on this Friday.