maui surf report: Thursday 3 23 17 morning call

Thursday, March 23, 2017

Thursday 3 23 17 morning call

Early morning surf session at Hookipa was quite poor again. This is a photo of Jason Hall riding his latest craigslist score, that I took when I got out of the water. I didn't shoot for long, but it was pretty clear that I wasn't gonna see any better rides.

Fortunately I surfed late morning somewhere else and that was much better. I was actually planning on an windsurf session, but the wind quickly got way too strong for my taste. This photo by Jimmie Hepp from this gallery shows how the lip of that wave is literally torn apart by the wind.

4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
2.2ft @ 8s from 173° (S)

1.8ft @ 14s from 267° (W)

1.5ft @ 12s from 252° (WSW)

Wrap getting smaller, it's probably tiny, but check the webcams.

North shore
NW101
4.8ft @ 13s from 300° (WNW)

2ft @ 10s from 323° (NW)

Waimea
4.2ft @ 13s from 314° (NW)

Pauwela

2.6ft @ 7s from 79° (ENE)

1.8ft @ 14s from 323° (NW)

1.6ft @ 10s from 342° (NNW)

1.5ft @ 12s from 320° (NW)

The swell never made it over 3f 14s at Pauwela yesterday, confirming the westerly nature of it. Waves at sunset were very clean thanks to the finally light sideoff wind, but barely head high. They should be even smaller today (stay tuned for the beach report) with those weak readings at the buoy. Below is the graph of the three reported buoys. I put a couple of arrows to show a clear decrease in size recorded by all of them.

This swell has been long lasting and the NW101 reading shows that it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Here's Pat Caldwell wordy explanation of why: A long-lived low pressure system 3/15-19 in the far NW Pacific has kept steady surf in Hawaii 3/19-22. Gales 3/17-18 slowly weakened to marginal gales 3/18-19 with wide, long fetch beyond 2000 nm out.

And here's GP's graphical collage of the NW Pacific of the days he mentions: 15-19 from left to right. Notice how much more intense and south (west compared to us) the first day was. 5 day later, Kihei Cove had head high waves. The other four days the storm moved a tad more north (less west for us), but was still confined between 295 and 310, I'd say. If you guys read the Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines, you should remember that the Molokai shadow line for Hookipa is 305, so that explains the difference in size with the Waimea readings.

The wind sensor at Hookipa reads 6(4-9)mph from 99 at 5.45, so despite the smaller size, this morning the conditions should be a lot better than the last couple of morning.
Below is the MC2km map at 2 and shows no wind down the coast, and very offshore trades up at Hookipa. I'm calling no sailing because of the 10 man rule, but obviously I can be totally wrong.