9 12 16 morning call

A couple of surf sessions at Hookipa for me yesterday. I needed a break from the drive, but the Lahaina cam looked pretty good at sunset. I'll talk more about it below.

The trades were on the light side, only a couple of sailors out, this is Graham Ezzy on a waist high one.


Significant buoy readings 6am
NW
1.6ft @ 13s from 319° (NW)

Waimea
0.4ft @ 18s from 324° (NW)

Pauwela
3.9ft @ 8s from 70° (ENE)

2ft @ 6s from 52° (ENE)

No sign of the NW swell at Pauwela buoy yet, but some minor energy from it both at the NW and Waimea buoys. Notice the difference in the period. That can be due to a mix of the following factors:
- it went down that much in the time that the swell takes to travel between the two buoys
- there still is longer period at the NW buoy, but now the 13s component is bigger and the readings only show that.

To know how much of that we'll see in Maui this afternoon, you'll need to check the buoys and see how much they rise during the day. Right now, the odds for a good sunset session are small, IMO, but do check the buoys/webcam if you're interested in that.
In the morning, with such a small windswell reading, Hookipa should be tiny.

Lanai

1.6ft @ 8s from 186° (S)

0.9ft @ 14s from 207° (SSW)

0.8ft @ 11s from 185° (S)

0.7ft @ 18s from 209° (SSW)

Lovely mix of period at the Lanai buoy. Notice how westerly are the 18s and 14s components, that means they're coming from the Tasman Sea. What I was seeing yesterday on the cam was the leftover 12s component instead that was a little bigger at the buoy (like 1.5f). Haven't looked at the cam yet this morning, but in lack of waves on the north shore, I think I'll be driving again. Stay tuned on the beach reports later. Overall, today will be a day with very small waves everywhere.

In the meantime, here's the maps of Sept 4,5 and 6, so you can see the evolution of the Tasman Sea fetch that created the long period (low) energy at the buoy today.

Sept 4.


Sept 5.


Sept.6


The current wind map shows:
- a brand new NW fetch that will send a second NW swell on Friday.
- a small/weak distant NE fetch.
- the strong fetch south of New Zealand is unfortunately shooting towards the Americas. We might get a bit of angular spreading in a week.
Also notice a new storm east of us that might become an hurricane.


The models see it travelling north of us (like Lester did) and that means we should get some waves from it. Too early for specifics, the map below is Sept 21. Notice also the monster fetch in the Tasman Sea, I hope I'll get to see some photos from Fiji when that swell hits.


MC2km map shows very light slightly onshore trades on the north shore. The morning should be calm.