I surfed Lahaina side yesterday, it was tiny to small, which is a lot better than flat to tiny, which, in turn, is a lot better than flat!
Here's a place that does go flat quite often, but it sure wasn't a few days ago when this big swell hit Bali: Padang Padang.
Photos by Matt Walker.
Here's a short video showing that when the place goes off, the lineup is choked.
And if you're wondering why the place goes flat often, here's a map that explains it. The arrow PP points to exactly the place where those waves are breaking. The arrow RT points to the very last section of the much better exposed Uluwatu: Race Tracks. The big lines on the left indicate the SW direction most of the swells come in from. The small lines in front of PP indicate the direction that the waves have in the video above, after having turned about 90 degrees around Uluwatu.
That's why Ulu's is always bigger and rarely flat compared to Padang Padang, which requires a powerful, long period SW swell to go off. Here's a post where I calculated a few shadow lines for the Bali spots.
4am significant buoy readings
South shore
W
2.2ft @ 14s from 168° (SSE)
SW
2ft @ 13s from 144° (SE)
SE
2.5ft @ 14s from 148° (SE)
Pretty consistent readings at the outer buoys. Let's see why the direction has so much east in it. Below is the map of 7 days ago, May 7th. I drew in black the direction I think the main bulk of the swell was generated towards. The angular spreading is what we're getting, hence the east component.
A quick look at the webcam revealed more size than yesterday. Check it out yourself.
North shore
Pauwela
6.6ft @ 9s from 71° (ENE)
Not much to say about the north shore, other than that it's all about the windswell. 9s is not a bad period for it, 71 is pretty much parallel to our north shore. It would be surfable, but the wind on it is strong too: 11 (6-16)mph from 89 at 4.45am. I got an early morning lesson, don't think I'll be able to post any beach report.
Current wind map shows:
1) NW fetch for Thursday's swell getting a little closer to us (but at the same time weaker than yesterday)
2) windswell fetch
3) compact but fairly strong S fetch
The low that's generating Thursday's swell is going to do a very nice thing on top of that. It's going to get close enough to the islands to temporary release the stranglehold of the high pressure. As a consequence, the wind will be light for a few days. Below is the map of Friday 19, that shows just that. In other words, not only that low will bring us some (small) waves, but it will also make the conditions a lot nicer. This is a common path in winter time.
Also notice the strong storm S/SE of New Zealand. That will kindly send us a swell that May 26/27 should reach 4.5f 15s, according to the Surfline forecast.
In other words, I know it sucks right now, but hang in there, things are about to get better...
Wind maps at 2pm show another day of strong easterly trades.
Morning sky.
3 comments:
I'm still confused about NAM-WRF and WRF being the same thing. At any rate the WRF page is 2km resolution which is what we want. Here's a trick for the WRF animation:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/MET/Faculty/wrf/arw/arw_maui_loop_10mw.html
if you have a large screen the animation is small and hard to see. However assuming you have a decent desktop browser and large-ish monitor, open the browser developer tool (F12) when this animation is the top window (has focus) and on the developer console tab enter
document.body.style.zoom="2"
and maximize your browser window. This makes it much easier to see all the details.
You can also try (easier if it works) ctrl+ (press ctrl and + key at same time). However on some browsers this zooms **all** the tabs (not good if you have lots open like me). But on Chrome at least this also works.
Hi Ben,
thanks for the zoom tip. I'm confused too about the NAM-WRF thing, that's just what my friend told me and I don't feel like bothering him with more questions.
He's working to create more legible maps, I'll keep you guys posted.
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