The nose rider went to the rescue of this lovely lady that was being pushed offshore by the stiff wind.
4am significant buoy readings
South shore
SW
1.9ft @ 13s from 160° (SSE)
SE
2.2ft @ 13s from 161° (SSE)
Little leftover energy from the south. The observation of the webcams will be key in deciding if it's worth it.
North shore
NW
3.8ft @ 12s from 301° (WNW)
Waimea
2.3ft @ 13s from 325° (NW)
Pauwela
5.1ft @ 9s from 70° (ENE)
1.6ft @ 13s from 310° (WNW)
Pretty meager readings at the buoy, the forecast was right. 1.6f 13s will be barely noticeable at Hookipa, (the noise out of my window is very mild) and my guess is that the windswell (which is going down) will still be predominant. At least should be pretty clean thanks to the lack of wind.
I thought this swell was going to be bigger, because I remembered some decent fetches. The good thing of saving the maps I use daily for the call is that you can retrieve them. Below are (from the left) the wind maps of May 13, 14 and 15. As you can see, only on the 13th, the fetch had some intensity, but it was pretty west and far from us. The next couple of days the fetch looks pretty weak. So, that was my mistake, due to my old and forgetful brain.
Pat Caldwell sums it up: The weak magnitude of the source and long travel distance limits surf potential locally.
At the bottom of the above collage, you can also observe the fetch east of New Zealand that will provide us with the next southerly bump on Saturday. Here's how Pat Caldwell describes it: The remnant of tropical storm donna became extratropical as it deepened east of New Zealand 5/12-13. A compact fetch had direct aim at Hawaii, with the limiting factor being the narrow fetch. The system was strongest 5/13 with severe gales and weakened to gales as it tracked east with similar size 5/14-16.
Current wind maps shows:
1) an average NW fetch
2) windswell fetch
The south pacific deserves a zoom today. It's a pretty impressive storm, but today we're still blocked a lot by New Zealand. Tomorrow should be the best day of wave generation for us. Consequently, the swell is forecasted by Surfline to pick up all day next Friday and peak Saturday at 4f 15s. That's a pretty good swell, probably the biggest of the new season so far.
That's how those fetches look on the meteogram's map, which unfortunately doesn't take into account the shadow of New Zealand.
Wind map at 5am shows light side-offshore. It might be even better than that, as the 4.30am sensor reading shows pretty much no wind at all.
2pm map is not too different, but you can expect the thermal wind to fill in, at least at Hookipa.
The morning sky looks beautiful and free of clouds. I put a red line to indicate the tail of the weak (at our latitude) front that is approaching.
You can see it better in the big blue photo. Once again, our magic latitude is being magic. We're just under the clouds.
No comments:
Post a Comment