Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's north shore)
10.7ft @ 14s from 337° (NNW)
7.4ft @ 8s from 49° (NE)
West lanai Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's south shore)
3.8ft @ 14s from 237° (WSW)
Well 10 feet are 10 feet, even though on the way down, as the waimea buoy graph below tells us.
The weather is dominated by the high pressure and the strong trades. I sailed Kanaha yesterday and it was pretty horrible. The strong wind torn apart the beautiful waves and added tons of chop on them.
It might still be considered kinda epic for European standard, but I lived here for 14 years and I'm spoiled, picky and very selective.
That's why I'm going to go look for cleaner waves to surf on the west side today.
Don't forget there's also a south swell. It doesn't show on the Lanai buoy, because that one does get the wrap of the NW swells and this one is so big that overshadows the south one (at least, that's the only reason I can think of, but I also observed it quite a few times, so I believe it to be true).
That's a bit unfortunate, because I wanted to verify a thing that I read on Pat Caldwell's page that kinda shocked me. Here it is:
"A surface low pressure system occluded east of New Zealand 12/8 with severe gales holding into 12/9 in an area about 3500 nm away from Hawaii. The pacioos/cdip buoy near american samoa showed a jump in southerly swell 12/10-12. Wave periods are mostly moderate near 14 seconds. As swell trains travel, the wave periods increase, so by the time the first batch of swell reaches Hawaii, they should be near 17 seconds. Inconsistent surf is predicted to fill in Sunday from 180-190 degrees, peak on Monday, and slowly drop on Tuesday into Wednesday. "
The period of the waves is an expression of the energy that was transferred to them by the wind that created them. How can it increase while they travel without any additional wind spacing them out more?
That doesn't make any sense to me, and I need to investigate it. I'm sure Uncle Pat is right, but I'd like to understand why. I got this big problem in my life... I like to understand how things work.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll find plenty waves on my way to the Bay.
I got these two puppies to try out... Merry Christmas to me! :)
Have fun in the sun everyone!
West lanai Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's south shore)
3.8ft @ 14s from 237° (WSW)
1.1ft @ 4s from 174° (S)
0.9ft @ 9s from 265° (W)
0.9ft @ 9s from 265° (W)
Well 10 feet are 10 feet, even though on the way down, as the waimea buoy graph below tells us.
The weather is dominated by the high pressure and the strong trades. I sailed Kanaha yesterday and it was pretty horrible. The strong wind torn apart the beautiful waves and added tons of chop on them.
It might still be considered kinda epic for European standard, but I lived here for 14 years and I'm spoiled, picky and very selective.
That's why I'm going to go look for cleaner waves to surf on the west side today.
Don't forget there's also a south swell. It doesn't show on the Lanai buoy, because that one does get the wrap of the NW swells and this one is so big that overshadows the south one (at least, that's the only reason I can think of, but I also observed it quite a few times, so I believe it to be true).
That's a bit unfortunate, because I wanted to verify a thing that I read on Pat Caldwell's page that kinda shocked me. Here it is:
"A surface low pressure system occluded east of New Zealand 12/8 with severe gales holding into 12/9 in an area about 3500 nm away from Hawaii. The pacioos/cdip buoy near american samoa showed a jump in southerly swell 12/10-12. Wave periods are mostly moderate near 14 seconds. As swell trains travel, the wave periods increase, so by the time the first batch of swell reaches Hawaii, they should be near 17 seconds. Inconsistent surf is predicted to fill in Sunday from 180-190 degrees, peak on Monday, and slowly drop on Tuesday into Wednesday. "
The period of the waves is an expression of the energy that was transferred to them by the wind that created them. How can it increase while they travel without any additional wind spacing them out more?
That doesn't make any sense to me, and I need to investigate it. I'm sure Uncle Pat is right, but I'd like to understand why. I got this big problem in my life... I like to understand how things work.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'll find plenty waves on my way to the Bay.
I got these two puppies to try out... Merry Christmas to me! :)
Have fun in the sun everyone!
4 comments:
bay had its moments yesterday, top of the point had many makeable toobs and cave had some too on the right ones. personally i had 2 clean barrels, one closeout toob at keiki bowl. not best direction for cave but crowd was light and picked plenty off on my 8' mini log.
good luck GP, you'll find some fer sure.
thank you Jason, I sure did.
I was at the bay for sesh 2 at 11ish...
I haven't heard of frequency shifts in water waves. They are nonlinear, so it's not impossible, but I wouldn't think it would be very significant. Perhaps what Pat meant was that the waves would spread and the longer period ones would reach us first -- the usual. Also, shorter period waves die off faster, so the power spectrum changes that way. But, shifting... nah, can't be much.
Yo Garrett,
thanks for your comment.
Pat said:"As swell trains travel, the wave periods increase".
That doesn't leave any doubt to what he meant. And that still keep making no sense at all for me.
Glad to see you agree...
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