Tuesday, December 22, 2009

All I want is a BIG swell for Christmas!

And looks like I'm gonna get it...



Title, graph and the following forecast are from surfline.com
Progressively larger NW groundswells will charge Hawaii over the week, climaxing with a big swell the night of Christmas Eve. Santa will even bring a small, but fun-size SSW swell for the southerly exposures.

It will pretty west, but still big enough for Jaws. From the map below (that I got from the NOAA site), my guess that the Molokai shadow for Jaws is around 300 degress and around 308 for Hookipa. The West Maui Mountain shadow for Kanaha is around 320.


And from this other one, you can see how the Honolua Bay shadow line from Molokai is around 335.


Don't forget that the bigger (and longer period) the swell, the higher the ability of it of wrapping around land points and spreading angularly.

So, where is going to be good? Well, I'm giving you guys the info...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great work Giampaolo. The Ocean will still always surprise us...thanks God!! Anyway it would be very helpfull for us to make a spreadshet in which we relate the sweel height, direction and period (taken from a buoy) to the average height of the face of the wave (more or less: head height, overead, etc.) even if the tide would be another variable...I could give you already some datas of many spots...before I forgive them...but I will have plenty of datas in the months to come...ahaha

I know that technology (web cam, anemometer and cell phone) make our life easyer...but is it easyer = better? I think that we should continue to use our sense and ancient knoledge...at least to use our brain!

aloha
Paolo

cammar said...

"it would be very helpfull for us to make a spreadshet in which we relate the sweel height, direction and period (taken from a buoy) to the average height of the face of the wave"

I started to do something like that years ago, but I was never consistent enough to write everything down.

As you guessed at the end of your comment, sometimes it's more fun to still do things based on knowledge, sense and intuition...

Nonetheless, start the log brother.
That might be the reason why you're on this planet...

Dave said...

G, Do you have to pay for that swell direction chart from surfline? That is very helpful.
Dave

Leonardo said...

Goood Job Gianpaolo! and thanks for sharing your homework! have a good feeling about the dawn session tomorrow. . . see you on the ocean

Leonardo

Anonymous said...

What pretty maps of which I have no understanding whatsoever so I'll simply say a Happy Christmas to you and your readers from a very cold and snowy England.

Anne

Anonymous said...

auguri super giampaolo !
buon anno e ....continua cosi !
M

cammar said...

Yo Dave,
I think it's reserved to members only. Check out yourself: http://www.surfline.com/surfline/lola/5dw_n_oahu1_srf.jsp
But I saw a very similar one on some other site that I can't quite recall now, so if you look on the net, you'll find a free one.
The main reason I pay 70 bucks/year for surfline is the buoy readings. They separate the three main swells hitting a buoy at one point and that is much more information than reading the NOAA buoy pages. Someone told me that other sited offer that for free, but I never really got into looking for it...

Leo,
fun sesh yesterday, uh?
After 2 hours of SUP surfing in the morning, I entered the water around 3.30 with a 6.6 thinking I had one more hour in me. I ended up surfing till 6! I was so tired that I went to sleep at 9 and woke up at 6.20...
People wonder why the social life is so poor in Maui...
Morning session will be good, thanks to the lack of wind. Afternoon will see an onshore flow, so give all you have in the morning.
Nice style, btw!

Anne and M, thanks.

David said...

http://davidavarlden.blogspot.com/2009/12/jaws-action.html

Action from Jaws, Christmas Day. =)

Aloha!