Victorian Surf Forecast (issued Mon 24th Feb)

Victoria Forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued Monday 24th February)

Best Days: Tuesday morniong, Friday through Sunday east of Melbourne, Monday

Recap

The weekend started off average with a lack of early W'ly winds around Torquay replaced by a moderate onshore wind, that blew across most of the state creating poor conditions with an easing swell.

A strong new SW groundswell filled in Sunday but conditions remain less than perfect with a light to moderate onshore breeze. Still selected locations still offered good waves coming in at 3ft+ on the Surf Coast and 5-6ft along the Mornington Peninsula into the afternoon.

Today another reinforcing pulse of SW groundswell has kept similar waves hitting the coast, but conditions remained a little bumpy and crumbly with a light onshore breeze.

This week (Feb 24 -28)

A flurry of strong and back to back polar frontal activity has generated the last couple of days of swell, with one more additional pulse expected tomorrow before we fall in between swells.

This pulse should keep 3ft+ surf hitting the Surf Coast tomorrow, with 6ft+ sets across the Mornington Peninsula into the afternoon and winds look excellent, swinging locally offshore across both coasts during the morning ahead of a late and fresh SW change.

Therefore try and get your surfing in before lunch to make the most of the favourable swell and wind combo.

We're expected to fall in between swells on Wednesday and the Surf Coast should fare the best with an early W/NW'ly, while everywhere else will be onshore.

Of greater interest is a larger increase in SW groundswell expected to fill in Thursday across the state.

As touched on last update, an intensification of the Long Wave Trough moving over Tassie during the middle of the week should aim and strengthen a couple of polar fronts up through our swell window over the coming days, with the secondary system being the strongest and main swell producer (pictured right) as it feeds off the upper atmospheric weather system.

This should send up a medium to large SW groundswell for Thursday, peaking around 3-5ft on the Surf Coast during the afternoon and 6-8ft on the Mornington Peninsula, but winds will unfortunately swing onshore from the S/SE as a surface trough moves across the state.

Friday will be better on the Mornington Peninsula as the swell backs away with E'ly winds during the morning, but the beaches will still probably be too big and closing out.

This weekend onwards (Mar 1 onwards)

Locations that like E'ly winds and moderate amounts of swell will fair best over the weekend, as Thursday's SW groundswell continues to ease into Saturday under E/SE winds.

Sunday will start out slow fun with straighter E'ly winds, but a new long-range SW groundswell is due to arrive strongly during the afternoon. This swell will arrive from a funky source, that being a ex-Tropical Cyclone Guito which was positioned between Madagascar and South Africa last week, being absorbed into the westerly storm track and forming into a deep polar low east of Heard Island through tomorrow.

A fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/SW winds will be generated in our far swell window (pictured right), before the system moves closer to us but weakens.

The sheer strength of these winds should set in motion a good but very inconsistent SW groundswell that's expected to build to 3-4ft later in the day on the Surf Coast and 6ft to possibly 8ft on the Mornington Peninsula but with fresh E/SE winds.

Monday will be the pick though with the swell dropping under all day offshore NE winds. Check back here Wednesday for confirmation on this though.