Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Yesterday was another day of waves on both shores. I surfed Hookipa in the morning (glassy fun head high peaks) and 1000 peaks in the afternoon, which was all closeouts. That spot doesn't like size and period together. It can handle 2-3, but only if the period is 13 or less.
But I had some gloves to try and I pretty much just wanted to paddle around. That's what I did.

The photo by Jason Hall shows a beautiful sunrise.



5am buoys:
Pauwela
2.9ft @ 8s from 35° (NE)
1.8ft @ 11s from 322° (NW)

Barbers
2.4ft @ 14s from 186° (S)           
1.4ft @ 12s from 201° (SSW)

A little smaller, but as the Lahaina webcam shows, there's still head high sets out there. I put an arrow on one that is actually even slightly overhead. The Lahaina webcam is a must see one if you want to go that way and the sun is out already.
It might take you a while to understand that the waves are bigger than they look, but after 3-5 times that you check it first and then go see what the waves really are, you'll have figured it out.
Very important for the local wind too. It's glassy this morning (like most of the times there), so I better get going.


Should stay pretty windless all day, as the maui county 2km map at noon shows.



Couple of tiny fetches in the north pacific, just to keep it from going flat and the big one down south that moved east quite a bit, so that big swell next week is not gonna last a week like this one we have now.
I feel like copying a couple of meteo quotes.
First one is the Hawaii at a glance from Surfline:
Old swell mix winds down mid week then fresh SSW swell follows.
Fading but still fun combo of SSW Southern Hemi and NW-NNE swell for Wednesday. New, partially shadowed SW swell shows by the second half of the week, as the northerly swell eases. Healthy Southern Hemi moves in over the weekend then peaks early next week.

Second one is from uncle Pat Caldwell and it's about the fetch I pointed out yesterday:
The low pressure pattern continued to deepen as it moved east of the New Zealand shadow 5/24-25. Central pressure dropped to 938 mb by 12Z 5/25 and held to 00Z 5/26, or Monday am to pm locally. The center moved slowly NE near 55°S, 170°W. A large, wide fetch of gales to storm-force winds over the 180-200 degree band with the head of the fetch near 45°S, or about 4000 nm away late Monday. The jason altimeter validated seas within 30-35 feet 12Z 2/26, early Tuesday locally. The system is steadily weakening 5/26 and drifting east.
Long period forerunners of 20-25 second are due to fill in Saturday night locally. The onset stage for remote events is typically slow, taking about a day for the more common southerly swell events. However, for episode well above average as this one is anticipated, the onset stage is shorter since more energy is placed in the longer wave period bands. This should mean a steady rise Sunday. More details will be possible once the swell trains roll under the samoa buoy, which is close to the great circle ray between the source and Hawaii.

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