Victorian Surf Forecast (issued Fri 21st Mar)

Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Friday 21st March)

Best Days: Sunday morning on the Surf Coast, early Monday on the Surf Coast, Wednesday onwards east of Melbourne

Recap

Yesterday was great with offshore winds and a moderate to large and easing SW groundswell to 3-4ft+ across the Surf Coast and 5-6ft+ along the Mornington Peninsula. Sea breezes spoilt conditions across the Surf Coast into the afternoon, while locations east of Melbourne remained relatively clean.

Today the swell was smaller and in the 2-3ft range across the Surf Coast with 4ft waves on the Mornington Peninsula with a lighter and variable wind. A stronger S/SW change is due to arrive during the afternoon, with glassy/lumpy conditions expected to persist until then.

This weekend (Mar 22 - 23)

There's been no real change to the weekend's forecast besides the timing of the peak of moderate to large SW groundswell due tomorrow. This now looks to be during the morning instead of the afternoon but winds will be poor and fresh from the S/SW all day.

Sunday will be the day to surf west of Melbourne though with an easing swell from 3ft across the Surf Coast and 5-6ft on the Mornington Peninsula under morning W/NW winds that will then give way to a W/SW change during the day.

Next week onwards (Mar 24 onwards)

As touched on in Wednesday's update, we'll see one final burst of storm activity through the Southern Ocean over the weekend and early next week ahead of a period of down time as a strong upper level block moves in from the west and sets up across the Bight

Similar to the way the Long Wave Trough steers frontal systems up and into us when it's positioned across the south-east of the country, an upper level block will steer frontal systems away from us, suppressing storms and swell activity. This is illustrated in the diagram to the right.

But this will only take effect after we see a couple of medium sized SW groundswell pulses through early to mid next week (with one final pulse of stronger SW groundswell on the cards for Thursday). The only issue is local winds, and early Monday should be favourable for the Surf Coast again with a morning W'ly before swinging S/SW during the day.

Tuesday will be poor with S/SE winds, but Wednesday looks fun on the Mornington Peninsula as winds swing back to the East, while the end of the week should see more favourable NE winds.

As explained above into next weekend and the following week, the block will keep swell activity to a minimum resulting in small waves best suited to exposed spots across the state.