Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday April 25th)

Best Days: Today, selected spots to the east tomorrow morning, Surf Coast next Friday, beaches next weekend

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Moderate sized, SW groundswell building today, peaking in the PM, easing tomorrow
• Moderate + sized SW swell building tomorrow, peaking later, with a reinforcing swell to a similar size Sun AM, easing
• Moderate S/SE winds from Torquay west early tomorrow, more variable to the east, with freshening S/SE winds across all loctions through the day
• Fresh S/SW winds Sun
• Easing surf Mon with moderate S/SW winds, freshening through the day (outside chance of early W'ly winds)
• Strong S/SW winds Tue, strong S Wed
• Small-mod sized mid-period S/SW swell Wed
• Easing surf Thu with fresh S/SE winds
• Possible new W/SW swell Fri with NW tending NE winds

Recap

It was a great day of surf across the beaches yesterday, with the Surf Coast reefs improving into the afternoon as winds shifted a bit more favourably offshore. We saw easing levels of SW groundswell and SE windswell from Wednesday coming in at 3ft+ to the west and 4-5ft to the east.

Today, our new inconsistent groundswell looks to be already filling in with variable winds (freshening since out of the north on the Surf Coast) and stormy weather along with 3ft surf continuing across the Surf Coast and 4-5ft sets to the east.

We should see the swell reaching 4ft on the magnets across the Surf Coast and 6ft to the east during the day as winds freshen from the N/NE and tend more N/NW mid-afternoon.

This weekend and next week (Apr 26 - May 2)

Today’s building SW groundswell will start to ease through tomorrow, though we’re set to see some new, moderate sized mid-period SW energy taking its place.

The source was a healthy polar frontal system that projected from the south-west of Western Australia, up under the country the last couple of days, with fetches of strong to sub-gale-force winds due to generate a decent increase in size through tomorrow, peaking later.

The Surf Coast should build to 3-5ft with 6ft+ sets to the east, while our reinforcing swell for Sunday morning has been upgraded a little.

This is thanks to a trailing front generating a small fetch of W/NW gales coming in a little stronger, spawning a low pressure system south-west of Tasmania, late in our swell window today.

This looks to maintain similar sized if not slightly stronger surf into Sunday morning (4-5ft Surf Coast magnets) before starting to ease into the afternoon, smaller Monday.

Now, winds are very tricky thanks to the current instability in the region, but tomorrow looks like we’ll see light to moderate S/SE winds from Torquay west, more variable east as the axis of the trough sits in the region.

We’re expected to see the trough shift east through the day bringing freshening S/SE winds to all locations, but with the window of variable winds, selected spots will be fun early.

Sunday now unfortunately looks onshore across all locations thanks to the trough lingering east of us, bringing fresh S/SW winds, similar Monday if not a touch weaker through the morning. There’s a slim chance for early W’ly winds across the Surf Coast but don’t count on it.

So all in all the coming swells look to be mostly spoilt by onshore breezes.

Tuesday through Wednesday look to be a write-off thanks to stronger S/SW-S winds. A small to moderate sized mid-period S/SW swell is due mid-week, but with no real offshore wind it’s not really worth talking about.

Longer term, high pressure will slowly move in later week creating improving conditions from Friday ahead of strengthening N’ly winds next weekend.

This looks to be ahead of a strong mid-latitude frontal progression with the following week looking much more favourable for surf. More on this Monday, have a great weekend!