Sunday 3 5 17 morning call

As stated in the beach report, yesterday morning around 7am Hookipa had some NW lines that were occasionally up to head high. Those lines lasted like an hour and then got smaller and eventually disappeared. At sunset it was as close as it gets to flat in winter time.

This is Marlon Lewis who, seen the small size, went out on his foiled shortboard.


Almost riding with no swell.


Sorry if I couldn't post an update with the decreased size later in the morning, but I was busy with my surf guide customer who I decided to take somewhere else: here.


That's her enjoying a lovely back hand blue water (as opposed to white) ride.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
2.7ft @ 15s from 290° (WNW)

W. Hawaii
4.9ft @ 15s from 271° (W)

New WNW swell on the rise, Kihei side should get waves. Check the webcams.

North shore
NW101
9.5ft @ 13s from 290° (WNW)           

6.3ft @ 10s from 286° (WNW)

Hanalei

6.4ft @ 14s from 282° (WNW)

5.4ft @ 10s from 289° (WNW)

3.3ft @ 11s from 291° (WNW

Waimea

3.1ft @ 15s from 289° (WNW)

2ft @ 13s from 314° (NW)

Pauwela
3.3ft @ 9s from 80° (E)

2.4ft @ 14s from 325° (NW)
 

Below are the graphs of: NW101, Hanalei and Lanai. The start of this swell is pretty west, but the directional spectrum is wide, so it's hard to guess the size at Hookipa, which should increase steadily all day. I'll post a beach report later.

 

 

This map is only from two days ago, but it shows the fetch (n.2) responsible for this swell. It's quite close to the islands and that explains the mix of periods you see at the buoys. The southern part of it is the one that is responsible for the most westerly energy.

 

Swells always have a range of directions  and periods at any time. Each direction/period couple has a related value of associated energy. The spectrum diagrams available on the Pacioos website (just added to the GP's list as link n. -1), help understand the concept.

The one below is Lanai this morning, for example. Maximum energy (red color) is between 270 and 285 and it's associated with 16-17 periods. Thanks to blog reader Chico for the link.

HRW model on Windguru shows a day of light wind that should start with a light southerly flow. MC2km map didn't get updated yesterday, and I guess they won't get updated today because it's Sunday and Woodie goes to church...
Seriously, the updates of those maps are so unreliable and inconsistent that it really seems they require a human intervention. Which is unthinkable of.
Anyway, iWindsurf 5.30am reading at Hookipa is 6mph from the south, so conditions should be very clean.

 

4am satellite photo 

Current wind map shows:
1) a close NW fetch
2) a weak windswell fetch


 PS. I did some significant updates to the old NW buoy travel times, which is now called (and available in the labels section for future references) Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines

All the major buoys travel times and all major shadow angles are calculated and illustrated there.