Tuesday 10 24 17 morning call

No electricity at my place today, fortunately I remembered that the mobile phone wifi hotspot feature works here (it doesn't in Indo), so I can do my regular post from the computer.

Yesterday morning I chose to surf because I want to keep all skills (and muscles) up and I had a session that was a 1 for the fun factor. All I could think was how much fun I was going to have if I chose to foil instead. That's where my heart is at the moment. Fortunately, after work I went to check the harbor and I saw the father of the Gofoil foils Alex Aguera ripping on some barely breaking waves and promptly joined him. There was a set every 15 minutes (the NW direction hardly squeezes in there and only if it's big), but I had some magic rides. It felt like snowboarding in fresh powder (that's a guess, because I don't snowboard). I gave it an 8.


After that I went to Hookipa to take some shots, since I know it was firing with the light Konas. This is Austin Kalama, for once without the foil.


Sick top turn.


This set was a 9.


Ian Walsh on a bomb.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
No sign of southerly energy at the outer buoys, but there should still be 1.5f 12s. The problem will be the persisting konas, so south shore not the place to go today.

North shore
NW
13.9ft @ 11s from 338° (NNW)

8.7ft @ 10s from 341° (NNW)

Waimea

5.2ft @ 13s from 320° (NW)

 

Below is the graph of the NW buoy. The red line shows yesterday's swell rapidly declining (that is coherent with what the fetch did, if you remember that). The red arrow that I drew instead shows the start of the much closer generated shorter period swell caused by the northerly winds behind the fetch. Let's say 4pm. By applying GP's rule of thumb for calculating the travel distance from the NW buoy to Maui (16h @16s +/- 1h per second of period), at 11s that energy will take 21 hours to get here. So we can expect a sharp rise of that around 1pm tomorrow.

Surfline has it much earlier in the morning and that is actually quite possible, since the onset of this new energy might not show on the NW buoy graph, because of the overlap with the existing longer period swell. Anyway, sometimes tomorrow morning the waves will increase in size. They won't be clean by any means is my guess, because of the too short distance and the light onshores. Disorganized breaking patterns due to multiple periods (as shown by the readings at the NW buoys). A swell needs to travel just a bit longer to clean up, in my opinion.

As far as today goes, Waimea is still showing a healthy 5f 13s, so as long as the light konas keep blowing (they still are at the moment), there might be some excellent conditions on tap. The earlier the better, since at one point they might switch to light onshores.

Wind map at noon shows very light onshores everywhere.


North Pacific shows the monster fetch that is now making the massive swell that will hit Friday/Saturday. Surfline predicts it to peak at 13f 18s (!) during the night between those two days.
It also shows the N fetch associated with the northerly winds behind the front passing over the islands right now. The related increase in the current swell is predicted to peak at 11.3f 11s on Wednesday.
Windswell fetch still there, but not for much longer.


Such a strong fetch deserves a traditional weather map. The low is an impressive 940 mbar.


South Pacific shows a decent fetch south of New Zealand, but unfortunately shadowed by it.


Satellite photo at 5.30am shows that we're almost out of the thick clouds.


Radar image at 6.05am shows that we're pretty much out of the heavy rain. As a matter of fact, it seems that it just stopped raining in Kuau. Check links n.6 and 8 of GP's list of meteo websites on the right column of this blog for updates on clouds/rain.