Victorian Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday May 23rd)

Best Days: Today, tomorrow Surf Coast, Sunday morning Surf Coast, late Monday

Features of the Forecast (tl;dr)

• Easing SW groundswell tomorrow with fresh W/NW tending NW then stronger N/NW winds tomorrow
• Acute, moderate sized W'ly swell Sun AM, easing with strong N/NW winds
• Late increase in moderate sized W/SW groundswell Mon with strong N/NW winds, shifting NW later
• Mod-large, low quality S/SW swell Tue with strong SW winds
• Easing surf Wed with strong SW winds
• Smaller Thu with fresh S/SW-S winds
• Moderate sized S/SW groundswell building Fri with fresh S/SW winds, easing Sat with weaker S winds
• Easing surf Sun with NE tending SE winds

Recap

A new pulse of W/SW swell offered good waves across the beaches yesterday morning with 3-4ft sets off 13th Beach, more 3ft on the Surf Coast with 4-6ft waves to the east, best early on the high tide. SE sea breezes kicked up into the afternoon as the forerunners of a new, long-period SW groundswell arrived.

This morning we’ve got a peak in size with inconsistent but good 4-5ft sets on the Surf Coast, though lumpy and not ideal with the early high tide and light easterly wind flow, better across 13th Beach while locations to the east are maxing on the beaches and best across selected reefs.

Cape Sorell looks to still be reaching a peak and this should translate to stronger 5-6ft sets across the Surf Coast magnets through the day, larger to the east with winds shifting light E-E/SE.

This weekend and next week (May 23 - 30)

The large SW groundswell seen through today will start easing later and drop off steadily through tomorrow as winds shift around to the W/NW, then more NW-N/NW while strengthening through the day.

This will favour the Surf Coast with easing 3-4ft waves, bigger and more to 6ft to the east.

Moving into Sunday and our new pulse of W/SW groundswell is still on track, with a healthy mid-latitude low that’s currently just under Western Australia expected to generate a moderate sized increase for the morning, easing into the afternoon.

A fetch of strong to gale-force winds should maintain 3ft waves across the Surf Coast magnets (possible rare bigger one) with 4-6ft waves to the east with winds holding strong from the N/NW all day.

We then look at the strong, northward projecting cold outbreak for early next week, and as discussed on Wednesday, it looks to have gone the way of EC, that being projecting north and not being ideal for swell generation at all.

An initial fetch of gale to severe-gale SW winds on the periphery of our swell window tomorrow looks to generate a small W/SW groundswell for later Monday with building sets to 4ft possible before dark on the Surf Coast, small to tiny ahead of it.

Winds will be tricky but favourable and strong from the N/NW tending more NW later, with Tuesday seeing strong SW winds as the cold outbreak moves across us.

There’s not expected to be any real decent swell generating fetch being drawn up from polar latitudes behind the mid-latitude system, with a localised, chunky S/SW windswell due Tuesday, easing Wednesday as the low clears slowly east.

Unfortunately strong SW winds will persist Wednesday, shifting more S/SW on Thursday and persisting Friday with no letup in the onshore flow at all until possibly Saturday but more so Sunday. This will be as a slow moving high pressure system moves in from the west, bringing a slow easing and improvement in winds.

Swell wise, a strengthening polar frontal progression south-west of Tasmania may generate some moderate sized S/SW groundswell for Friday, easing Saturday but we’ll have a closer look at this on Monday. Have a great weekend!