Friday, March 15, 2019

Friday 3 15 19 morning call

Two shortboard sessions for me yesterday. This is my pick of yesterday's gallery by Jimmie Hepp.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Barbers
0.8ft @ 20s from 214° (SW)

Lanai
1.7ft @ 13s from 203° (SSW)

The tiny long period reading at Barbers and the small medium one at Lanai should ensure that the south shore won't be flat again today. Yesterday it was knee to waist high.

North shore
NW101
4.1ft @ 12s from 334° (NNW)

Hanalei
5.3ft @ 13s from 337° (NNW)

Waimea
5.4ft @ 11s from 324° (NW)
0.7ft @ 20s from 317° (NW)

Pauwela
5.5ft @ 12s from 327° (NW)
3.1ft @ 9s from 38° (NE)
 
Gonna use today's readings to show an example of how important little details can be. Below is the graphs of NW101, Hanalei and Pauwela. You guys know that I don't trust much the direction indicated by the buoys, but that's when there's many swells of comparable energies in the water, which is not so much the case today. This said, notice how the direction changed slightly more north in the last hours on the graphs of the first two buoys (I circled that on the lower part of the graph).
 
IF that will happen in Maui too (and I don't see why it shouldn't), that'll make quite a big difference for spots like Honolua, which, as we know from the post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines, has a shadow line of 335 degrees. The actual 5.5ft 12s from 327 might not be quite enough to allow a sufficient amount of energy to wrap around Molokai and make it to the Bay, but IF it turns more north than 335, it'll be a different story. So keep an eye on the direction, if you're interested in surfing Honolua today. Keep an eye on this blog too, because after an early morning's lesson, I might go check it out myself, in which case I'll post a beach report. Otherwise, Hookipa will have well overhead waves.

Just to complete the discussion, and since I've been asked already, a swell like the one predicted for Monday (20.7ft 15s from 329) will be so big that even if it'll partially shadowed, it will for sure make for big waves at the Bay. There is no numeric rule that I can provide for that. The only way to learn what will work and what won't, is to take note of what's in the water and to see what the different spots look like and to do that each single day.


Wind map at noon.


The conveyor belt (aka jet stream) has been providing one NW fetch after the other in the last couple of weeks. With the exception of last weekend's one, none of the resulting swell has been particularly big, due to the zonal (west to east) movement of the lows. The new one that we see today on the map will instead also move towards us, creating what's called captured fetch, which is one of the conditions for creating large swells. Another factor is proximity and that one will be matched too (a little too close actually, as we'll suffer from the accompanying northerly winds). Other factors include wind strength and fetch size. Notice also on the map a tiny and distant N fetch and the windswell one.


Nothing from the South Pacific.


Morning sky.

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